In March 2002, I signed up for a 12 week writing course called 'Just Write' with Jane Camens. As part of the creative process we were instructed to do an exercise called The Morning Pages. The Morning Pages had to be done in the morning and done every morning The purpose of the exercise is to get your writing juices flowing and like practising the piano, you need to get the cruddy stuff out of the way before the good stuff starts to flow. (A couple of years ago on a weekend break in Amsterdam I stumbled upon The American Book Centre. I spent the entire afternoon browsing this gorgeous shop with its floor to ceiling shelves of books on every conceivable subject when looking over the shoulder of my husband as we reluctantly started to leave I spotted the The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Morning Pages came from her. In her book, Julia writes that doing your Morning Pages every morning is like meditation (pg. 13): through the process of writing you cross over to other side of negativity.)
Back to Hong Kong, after reading the hand-out explaining the concept behind Morning Pages, I realised I do it already except I did it in the afternoon after spending the morning wallowing in self pity and working myself up into a rage and spewing my poison all over the keyboard and emailing it off to a friend on the other side of the world who I might never see again. I timidly asked, "Why does it have to be done in the morning, what's so special about that time?" I can't remember what Jane replied but Betty sitting next to me explained, "In the morning you have your worst thoughts and by writing first thing in the morning, you get all that poison out before you have time to gloss over them." That got my attention. Every morning I wake up hung over with self pity. Overnight, it seems my mind fills up with the toxic sludge of 'poor me, I'm so hard done by' and in the morning I wake up pissed off with the world and just riddled with bitterness and resentment. It doesn't matter how good the day before went, in fact it doesn't matter what happened the day before, I always wake up with this hangover without necessarily having the pleasure of drink to bring it on.
About five years ago I took up the practice of meditation. I signed up with The Practical School of Philosophy on Anglesea Street. I loved the course with the discussions on 'What is happiness?' and the value of being still. At the beginning of every class we would do 10 minutes of meditation during which time I nearly always found myself dozing off. My sister, Catherine regularly goes on retreats, meditation workshops and awareness boot camps in West Cork and Clare. She sold it to me when she said, "I find the day always goes well when I meditate". On the days I wake up feeling neutral I meditate but on the days I wake paralysed with worry/frustration/resentment I do my Morning Pages, If I have time I do both.
I am currently doing research on mental health for an essay I have to write for my course. There is a history of Depression in my family which I only fully appreciated when my father passed away a few years ago. My cousin identified it after she had her first baby and promptly nipped it in the bud. I plan to do the same. In my research, I came across an article on the internet in the magazine section of the New York Times called Depression's Upside by Jonah Lehrer, 25th Feb. 2010. It linked writing with depression and creativity. It talked about rumination; the endless 'chewing over' of thoughts in our head. Women are particularly prone to this. Lehrer writes 'Rumination is a useless kind of pessimism, a perfect waste of mental energy. Rumination reinforces depression' and further on he writes, 'Writing is a form of thinking which enhances our natural problem solving abilities'. For me this sums up the value of doing the Morning Pages. The ritual doesn't just get your writing juices going, It gets your living juices going.
It is a fact that no matter how wretched I feel when I first wake up I find that after an hour of writing my mood improves. It's not exactly carnival standard but enough to say, "Ok, no more wallowing" and I get out of bed.
How to do it? Set the alarm for half an hour before you normally get up. Set it for an hour if think you need more time - I give myself an hour. Write down whatever is in your head no matter how trivial, boring, shallow or even pathetic it seems. Even if it's 'I hate Mondays' oh God, it's raining again, I hate Christmas, my life is boring, I'm boring............' No one is ever going to see this stuff so don't hold back. Write for half an hour or enough to fill three A4 pages.
In The Artist's Way, Julia writes you can't keep complaining 'about a situation morning after morning without being moved to constructive action'. In my experience, it seems writing is a process that has an innate system of progress in it; that you are propelled to move along and in doing so you arrive at the next step in the thought process and then the next and then the next....
When you are endlessly chewing over the same thoughts again and again or lying awake listening to the hamsters spinning one the wheel inside your head, or you feel you are in a rut caught in the same groove of a scratched record, write it out. Get a notebook, any old copybook will do, pick up a pen and write it out. Take that little crud of dirt from your mind and put it on the page.
The next morning do it again. Write, write, write it out. You will find yourself moving along. The thought that was bothering will start to lessen in importance as your mind gets bored with it and moves onto other thoughts. The original thought that was on your mind might still be there but it will trouble you less. It will become less all-consuming and less overwhelming. It will start to become manageable. You will start to gain perspective and come up with ways yourself to resolve it.
The way I see it: my mind is like a blocked drain. The act of putting it down on paper removes a particle of dirt from my mind which then causes other dirt to shift downwards. This in turn creates more room for other dirt to move. This dirt eventually gives way to allow the water to flow through and with it solutions to problems, higher quality thoughts, creativity, and light. This cleansing of your mind allows it to work efficiently free of negativity. The point is to scratch the dirt until it moves and keep scratching until it is gone. If you suffer from insomnia as I sometimes do, don't like in bed helplessly willing yourself back to sleep. Get up and write. Sometimes, after half an hour of writing I get sleepy and go back to sleep. Other times, I get up and start the day. Either way it's an improvement on lying in the dark with your brain galloping at 90 miles an hour.
It's like constipation. Why keep in the poison when with a little patience and pen and paper you can ease it out. You will be lighter and brighter for the day.
Set your alarm. Wake up. And just write.
Sunday, 15 March 2015
Morning Pages
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Rediscovering My Garden
After seven years of curling up like a cat in the afternoon sun on a kitchen chair in the west facing window of my kitchen we finally bit the bullet and turned our tiny, windy but sunny patio into a sun room. The patio got all the sun but it was either too windy to sit out and when it was sunny it had no shade. Just before Christmas 2013, out of the blue, my husband of 25 years said, "Have your sun room" and we weren't even talking about sun room, houses or anything remotely to do with bricks or sun. I was stunned. Then I got scared. How does someone get to the 'mature' age of 50 and never participated in a building project.
This was the first house we ever owned after having lived in an apartment for the last 20 years. It was a palace compared to the lunch box we lived in for the first eight years of our marriage with two babies in nappies. Building on an extra room which we didn't really need seemed wrong.
I googled the cost of building sun rooms in Ireland and was staggered to find the minimum cost is 20k and can go up to 40k; we're only talking about building one extra room. We got quotes from six different builders and settled for the middle road. Work started in the middle of February and barring one dodgy velux window it was all finished by the end of April.
The finished sun room is such a fantastic use of an awkward, under utilized space that we were left are reeling as to why we had not done this before. Originally it was intended to be 9 feet wide and 16 feet long as we did not want to encroach into the garden and take up valuable space for football. However, since Hubbie insisted the builder re cycle the old patio door it forced the builder to go out an extra five feet and so it is 21 feet long and what a difference!! That extra 5 feet actually makes the room. It is like sitting in the garden without that pesky wind but you also get the benefit of looking at the garden with the heat of the sun and the sound of the rain. It my favourite place in the whole world to be no matter what the weather. To be fair we have so far only experienced it in summertime, winter might bring a whole other range of 'challenges' or delights. Hubble and the boys have gone from 'Mum has gone mad' to 'what a great room'. So far I have only furnished it with a two seater couch borrowed from the bat cave and the dresser because there is simply no where else to put it but it fits in fine. The builder gave the room a pitched roof and it has the glorious effect of making the room bright, airy and almost like a little chapel. All I need is stained glass and a crucifix.
I did not have fixed ideas of how I wanted the room to look other than it had to have as many windows as possible, we had access to the garden and that it would be as bright as possible. Our budget was tight and immovable but as it happens that was a God send. My neighbour who very kindly allowed me to view her sun room which she had built four years ago had the entire gable end in glass. The builder said glass is more expensive than brick so we have a low window ledge instead of glass and I prefer that. It makes the room more like a room than a glass house and with our long, wet winters it will make the room cosier and less bleak. As a result we got a room at slightly more than half the cost but exactly suits our needs.
My mantra since I started working with college students and their mammies is 'Open heart, Open mind' and I find that gets me through every encounter with difficult people and situations. Our builder is a Sweetie but they say that the top most stressful events in life is moving house. The Chinese have a curse, 'May you build' and I put that in the same category. Everyone has their horror story. Once I told people I was building and even though they were usually pleased with the finished product, they all cursed builders. My builder came highly recommended by people I trust and once we discussed what I wanted from this room, I told him he was free to do what he thought was fit with the budget we agreed. I stood back. Luckily I work and so I was out of the house all day. The boys were at school and Hubbie was at work. Once they broke through the connecting wall from the kitchen to the potion, I would come home every day at 6 pm and find a layer of dust over everything. This lasted for about two weeks. You clean up, cover up as much as possible and stay patient. The garden lay under bags of cement and slabs of concrete bricks. Before the building started the garden was just a scrubby little football pitch prone to flooding so how it looked meant nothing to me. I just drew the blinds and was thankful it was February.
I had planted a Pyracanthus outside my north facing kitchen window; the one I look out of when I am washing the dishes. I wanted something evergreen and fast growing and that tolerated shade. It is a brave little shrub. I've since discovered that the side passage of our house is a wind tunnel and the gales that go howling through there in January are terrifying. If it's not tied down or locked in the shed it gets blown away. Our two huge wheelie bins have been over turned and ended out in the front garden many times. My Adirondack chairs make of solid oak have been tossed like tumble weeds across the back garden. I had the Pyracanthus tied to a pathetic trellis and during the building the winds brought the whole thing down. The poor Pyracanthus swayed out from the wall at a 45 degree angle bullied by the relentless winds. I saw it in the morning before I went to work but I neither had the time nor the wherewithal to fix it. When I got home that evening it was dark and so it was not until the following Saturday morning that I discovered that one of the builder's men had used huge masonry nails and wired the trellis and the Pyracanthus upright again. When I tested its firmness, it was solid and immovable. Crude it was but I was gratified by the simplicity and no nonsense cure. When I mentioned it to builder he was surprised. I am grateful by the kindness of one of his workers simply fixing something because it was broke.
This started out as a description of how I got back into gardening after a six year gap of apathy and turning my back on an asset. Once the sun room was finished and we hauled the two seater from the bat cave and situated facing the sun and the garden, I fully appreciated how bare the garden is and how little privacy we have. We are over looked on three sides. The neighbours on either side can see in as much as I can see into theirs which isn't a lot but you still prefer if they couldn't. The house at the end of the garden is side on and have two windows fully over looking. Somehow all these years that never bothered me but then I never sat out in my garden. I now want to sit in my sun room and planned to do so for the rest of my days. Young boys live there and they could care less. The adults have a life but the point is that they can and I wanted to prevent that.
Putting up trellis is expensive requiring drills and nails that my husband is not capable of doing. I don't trust my sons. I have a a lot of enthusiasm to start with but always run out of interest before the job is completely done. Example the sun room. I painted it and the kitchen at the same time. The newly dried plastered inhaled paint and it took eight tins and it could still have done with another coat but I got no help from my family, my neck hurt, I was worn out and I was bored. I settled for the mottled look and a promise to do it all again next spring with the same colour paint if it was available. Jasmine White from Dulux. Remember that.
I put up two weedy little trellis in 2006 in a burst of enthusiasm and attempted to grow jasmine and clematis on a north facing wall. They struggled; I lost interest and forgot I had them until the builder put them at the end of the garden. Our battery operated drill is useless: it wouldn't scratch paint. John is our postman at work but even more interesting he is also a farmer; he knows everything. I asked to borrow his drill. He hesitated and suggested I use picture hooks - you know the white plastic ones with the four tiny nails on top. I told him that was insane. He replied, "Your walls at home are made of concrete, why wouldn't they work outside as well?" I couldn't argue with that so on the way home I bought a pack of 25 of their largest picture hooks. I had mixed success. The blocks are not pure concrete. Sometimes the cement like substance crumbled where it couldn't take the hammering and in other spots I hit gold and the hook held. I ran gardening wire up and down the wall from hook to hook. I had 100% success with my Clematis Armani outside my kitchen window. I didn't take a picture before clematis but here is a picture after with clematis rampant. Here is another picture of hooks where I planted roses but the roses never took off which is why the hooks and wires are still visible. Now this works fine for light weight vines it was not so successful with the trellis. While also at the hardware shop I found masonry nails and over heard two men who I guessed to be in their 20's discussing the merits of each nail and asked them was it possible to put a nail into concrete without a drill and they said you can simply hammer them in. Music to my ears. I bought a pack of 50. The trick with hammering in nails is to find just a glimmer of a gap in the concrete. Hubbie had painted the wall but I could still detect holes where the paint did not fill. I tapped gently and once I felt the nail take then I would steadily increase the blows until a few good whacks sent the nail in until only a half inch protruded. I hung the trellis off a series of nails like this and then secured the trellis with wire stretched from one nail to another or a picture hook. It looks awful. Something a five year old would attempt but from the kitchen window you can't tell the difference. Up close is a picture. I reckoned once things start actually growing and using this thing then it will cover up the flaws and if the trellis loses firmness I'll whack another nail in. By then I may have lost interest and moved on to something else. The only thing about the nails and hammer 'technique' the vibrations going up the nail hurt my hands and I had to wrap tissue around the nail to absorb the tremors. If you have a husband with a drill and knows how to how to use it, you are lucky. If you have a drill and are willing to use it, you have my fullest respect.
Renewed interest in the garden.
My friend Carmel suggested planting willow trees. They sounded boring so I ignored that suggestion. The following Saturday the Examiner had a full page article raving about the benefits of the willow tree. I rang Carmel and asked did she still have the willows. She did. That was the 18th February. Her husband Mike (raised on a farm - I'm telling you, they know everything) had coppiced the willow the previous weekend and he had a stack of 8 foot long canes. He chopped them up into foot long stumps and threw in a few fuchsia stumps which had rooted. He said you simply drive the willow stumps into the ground at least 8 inches apart. Each stump will root and you will have a tree with shoots about 8 feet high by the end of the summer. I didn't believe him but I planted them anyway as instructed. Today is the 20th July. Every single one of them rooted and they have shoots at eye level with me. I am five foot tall so they have another two months to reach their potential. Even the stumps I did not planted rooted in the bucket and so feeling bad for them I planted them on the side of the house facing north and overlooked and so getting no sun whatsoever are completely in the shade and guess what? They are growing. Nowhere near as fast as steady as the ones in the sun but growing all the same. Privacy is an issue for me. Thank God for Google. I researched the things you can do with willow trees and I came across coppicing and excaplier. The latter is for fruit trees but I liked the principle of long stem and all the activity on top. This frees the ground level for prettier more interesting plants while occupying the upper area for screening. The three best thriving willows are being groomed for their canes and I have at least six good specimens. Next February maybe the 18th for good luck, I will prune those canes. Dig up the original willow stumps, work over the soil to be free of weeds and grass and then plant the canes the way I did with the original stumps. The idea is the shoots will come from the top of the cane which will act as my screen blocking out the two windows. Having trees right in the front of the windows will be clumsy and obvious so I plan to plant 8 for symmetry four on either side of my super Rosa. I will have to clear out my Montbrecia which is gorgeous at the moment and luckily seems to survive anything. The fuchsias I will take out and put back once the willows are established. I feel like Dr Evil plotting the overtaking of the world but it is only the bottom of my garden which is about 25 feet wide. I really should get a life.
I was on the hunt for vigorous evergreen climbers, vigorous climbers would do too. When I worked in Kentish Town in London in the 90's the head office was in a prefab. The handyman John planted a Russian Mile a Minute outside the kitchen window. That thing grew a foot a day and Kitty the tea lady cursed the fact it crept in the window no matter how much John hacked it back. I was fascinated by a plant that grew so pushy. When I read the description that it was aggressive and unfussy and thrived in poor soil, that was my kind of plant. I bought one a few years ago and planted in the shady corner where the sun simply never reaches. It grew steadily enough. But then we went on holidays and when we returned two weeks later it had grown into a monster. It ransacked the fence and the wall I was delighted. I love pruning. I can't help it but when I see a thing grow I have the urge to cut it back. It might be to do with the fact that I was defender on my GAA football team. I had no interest in scoring I just wanted to stop anyone else doing it. I snip at it every day when all else is quiet and it always gives me something to do. It's very difficult to get rid off or so the BBC gardening website promises but my middle son succeeded. He only ever cuts the grass when he wants money which means it could be cut three times a week or three times a month depending on his needs. He shows no discrimination and mows everything. He destroyed a thriving azalea, a newly planted rhubarb corm and my magnificent Mile a Minute. Like the Wicked Witch of the East, it shrivelled and died. The stump is still there but no life.
This spring with my renewed interest and zero patience for results and progress - they say gardening teaches you patience but the garden does what it pleases and you realise how little patience you actually have - I decided to buy another Mile a Minute. I tried five different garden centres around Cork, good respectable ones but none of them had it. One Centre went through the farce of ordering it for me but it wasn't 'included in the delivery'. After weeks of doing the rounds finally one Centre Manager confessed that they will never stock it the since they are so aggressive. I asked her to order it anyway and I would buy the entire order and she still refused. She then suggested that if I saw it growing in a friend's garden to ask to take a cutting. I never thought of that but then I never saw this plant in a friend's garden. There is a magnificent specimen growing over the The Star pub on Capwell and another one overhanging the link on the bridge. I work in UCC and I asked the gardener. He said it wasn't on the grounds but I could have a cutting of the evergreen jasmine in July. Leaving work one evening by the Gaol Cross gate I saw a vine poke through the railing. It looked like a young Mile a Minute. I photographed it with my phone and compared it to Google images, they matched. The next day I brought in rooting gel, plastic bag and secatures. I took in all 9 cuttings and two of them took. I am now the very delighted owner of two growing vines. I found the gentler sister in Hanley and it is growing well up a swingball pole I recycled but it is no where as fast as the Russian. It is plants like these that make gardening satisfying. You can keep your petunias and summer annuals I want rocket plants. If you walk along the corridor in UCC by the Aula Max you can see Ivy growing through the windows and it's enchanting. The Virginal creeper is allowed to grow over and around the diamond paned windows gradually blocking out the sunlight and it is very pretty. Some ivy founds its way through the gaps in the panes and is hanging down on the inside. Now that is my kind of plant.
This was the first house we ever owned after having lived in an apartment for the last 20 years. It was a palace compared to the lunch box we lived in for the first eight years of our marriage with two babies in nappies. Building on an extra room which we didn't really need seemed wrong.
I googled the cost of building sun rooms in Ireland and was staggered to find the minimum cost is 20k and can go up to 40k; we're only talking about building one extra room. We got quotes from six different builders and settled for the middle road. Work started in the middle of February and barring one dodgy velux window it was all finished by the end of April.
The finished sun room is such a fantastic use of an awkward, under utilized space that we were left are reeling as to why we had not done this before. Originally it was intended to be 9 feet wide and 16 feet long as we did not want to encroach into the garden and take up valuable space for football. However, since Hubbie insisted the builder re cycle the old patio door it forced the builder to go out an extra five feet and so it is 21 feet long and what a difference!! That extra 5 feet actually makes the room. It is like sitting in the garden without that pesky wind but you also get the benefit of looking at the garden with the heat of the sun and the sound of the rain. It my favourite place in the whole world to be no matter what the weather. To be fair we have so far only experienced it in summertime, winter might bring a whole other range of 'challenges' or delights. Hubble and the boys have gone from 'Mum has gone mad' to 'what a great room'. So far I have only furnished it with a two seater couch borrowed from the bat cave and the dresser because there is simply no where else to put it but it fits in fine. The builder gave the room a pitched roof and it has the glorious effect of making the room bright, airy and almost like a little chapel. All I need is stained glass and a crucifix.
I did not have fixed ideas of how I wanted the room to look other than it had to have as many windows as possible, we had access to the garden and that it would be as bright as possible. Our budget was tight and immovable but as it happens that was a God send. My neighbour who very kindly allowed me to view her sun room which she had built four years ago had the entire gable end in glass. The builder said glass is more expensive than brick so we have a low window ledge instead of glass and I prefer that. It makes the room more like a room than a glass house and with our long, wet winters it will make the room cosier and less bleak. As a result we got a room at slightly more than half the cost but exactly suits our needs.
My mantra since I started working with college students and their mammies is 'Open heart, Open mind' and I find that gets me through every encounter with difficult people and situations. Our builder is a Sweetie but they say that the top most stressful events in life is moving house. The Chinese have a curse, 'May you build' and I put that in the same category. Everyone has their horror story. Once I told people I was building and even though they were usually pleased with the finished product, they all cursed builders. My builder came highly recommended by people I trust and once we discussed what I wanted from this room, I told him he was free to do what he thought was fit with the budget we agreed. I stood back. Luckily I work and so I was out of the house all day. The boys were at school and Hubbie was at work. Once they broke through the connecting wall from the kitchen to the potion, I would come home every day at 6 pm and find a layer of dust over everything. This lasted for about two weeks. You clean up, cover up as much as possible and stay patient. The garden lay under bags of cement and slabs of concrete bricks. Before the building started the garden was just a scrubby little football pitch prone to flooding so how it looked meant nothing to me. I just drew the blinds and was thankful it was February.
I had planted a Pyracanthus outside my north facing kitchen window; the one I look out of when I am washing the dishes. I wanted something evergreen and fast growing and that tolerated shade. It is a brave little shrub. I've since discovered that the side passage of our house is a wind tunnel and the gales that go howling through there in January are terrifying. If it's not tied down or locked in the shed it gets blown away. Our two huge wheelie bins have been over turned and ended out in the front garden many times. My Adirondack chairs make of solid oak have been tossed like tumble weeds across the back garden. I had the Pyracanthus tied to a pathetic trellis and during the building the winds brought the whole thing down. The poor Pyracanthus swayed out from the wall at a 45 degree angle bullied by the relentless winds. I saw it in the morning before I went to work but I neither had the time nor the wherewithal to fix it. When I got home that evening it was dark and so it was not until the following Saturday morning that I discovered that one of the builder's men had used huge masonry nails and wired the trellis and the Pyracanthus upright again. When I tested its firmness, it was solid and immovable. Crude it was but I was gratified by the simplicity and no nonsense cure. When I mentioned it to builder he was surprised. I am grateful by the kindness of one of his workers simply fixing something because it was broke.
This started out as a description of how I got back into gardening after a six year gap of apathy and turning my back on an asset. Once the sun room was finished and we hauled the two seater from the bat cave and situated facing the sun and the garden, I fully appreciated how bare the garden is and how little privacy we have. We are over looked on three sides. The neighbours on either side can see in as much as I can see into theirs which isn't a lot but you still prefer if they couldn't. The house at the end of the garden is side on and have two windows fully over looking. Somehow all these years that never bothered me but then I never sat out in my garden. I now want to sit in my sun room and planned to do so for the rest of my days. Young boys live there and they could care less. The adults have a life but the point is that they can and I wanted to prevent that.
Putting up trellis is expensive requiring drills and nails that my husband is not capable of doing. I don't trust my sons. I have a a lot of enthusiasm to start with but always run out of interest before the job is completely done. Example the sun room. I painted it and the kitchen at the same time. The newly dried plastered inhaled paint and it took eight tins and it could still have done with another coat but I got no help from my family, my neck hurt, I was worn out and I was bored. I settled for the mottled look and a promise to do it all again next spring with the same colour paint if it was available. Jasmine White from Dulux. Remember that.
I put up two weedy little trellis in 2006 in a burst of enthusiasm and attempted to grow jasmine and clematis on a north facing wall. They struggled; I lost interest and forgot I had them until the builder put them at the end of the garden. Our battery operated drill is useless: it wouldn't scratch paint. John is our postman at work but even more interesting he is also a farmer; he knows everything. I asked to borrow his drill. He hesitated and suggested I use picture hooks - you know the white plastic ones with the four tiny nails on top. I told him that was insane. He replied, "Your walls at home are made of concrete, why wouldn't they work outside as well?" I couldn't argue with that so on the way home I bought a pack of 25 of their largest picture hooks. I had mixed success. The blocks are not pure concrete. Sometimes the cement like substance crumbled where it couldn't take the hammering and in other spots I hit gold and the hook held. I ran gardening wire up and down the wall from hook to hook. I had 100% success with my Clematis Armani outside my kitchen window. I didn't take a picture before clematis but here is a picture after with clematis rampant. Here is another picture of hooks where I planted roses but the roses never took off which is why the hooks and wires are still visible. Now this works fine for light weight vines it was not so successful with the trellis. While also at the hardware shop I found masonry nails and over heard two men who I guessed to be in their 20's discussing the merits of each nail and asked them was it possible to put a nail into concrete without a drill and they said you can simply hammer them in. Music to my ears. I bought a pack of 50. The trick with hammering in nails is to find just a glimmer of a gap in the concrete. Hubbie had painted the wall but I could still detect holes where the paint did not fill. I tapped gently and once I felt the nail take then I would steadily increase the blows until a few good whacks sent the nail in until only a half inch protruded. I hung the trellis off a series of nails like this and then secured the trellis with wire stretched from one nail to another or a picture hook. It looks awful. Something a five year old would attempt but from the kitchen window you can't tell the difference. Up close is a picture. I reckoned once things start actually growing and using this thing then it will cover up the flaws and if the trellis loses firmness I'll whack another nail in. By then I may have lost interest and moved on to something else. The only thing about the nails and hammer 'technique' the vibrations going up the nail hurt my hands and I had to wrap tissue around the nail to absorb the tremors. If you have a husband with a drill and knows how to how to use it, you are lucky. If you have a drill and are willing to use it, you have my fullest respect.
Renewed interest in the garden.
My friend Carmel suggested planting willow trees. They sounded boring so I ignored that suggestion. The following Saturday the Examiner had a full page article raving about the benefits of the willow tree. I rang Carmel and asked did she still have the willows. She did. That was the 18th February. Her husband Mike (raised on a farm - I'm telling you, they know everything) had coppiced the willow the previous weekend and he had a stack of 8 foot long canes. He chopped them up into foot long stumps and threw in a few fuchsia stumps which had rooted. He said you simply drive the willow stumps into the ground at least 8 inches apart. Each stump will root and you will have a tree with shoots about 8 feet high by the end of the summer. I didn't believe him but I planted them anyway as instructed. Today is the 20th July. Every single one of them rooted and they have shoots at eye level with me. I am five foot tall so they have another two months to reach their potential. Even the stumps I did not planted rooted in the bucket and so feeling bad for them I planted them on the side of the house facing north and overlooked and so getting no sun whatsoever are completely in the shade and guess what? They are growing. Nowhere near as fast as steady as the ones in the sun but growing all the same. Privacy is an issue for me. Thank God for Google. I researched the things you can do with willow trees and I came across coppicing and excaplier. The latter is for fruit trees but I liked the principle of long stem and all the activity on top. This frees the ground level for prettier more interesting plants while occupying the upper area for screening. The three best thriving willows are being groomed for their canes and I have at least six good specimens. Next February maybe the 18th for good luck, I will prune those canes. Dig up the original willow stumps, work over the soil to be free of weeds and grass and then plant the canes the way I did with the original stumps. The idea is the shoots will come from the top of the cane which will act as my screen blocking out the two windows. Having trees right in the front of the windows will be clumsy and obvious so I plan to plant 8 for symmetry four on either side of my super Rosa. I will have to clear out my Montbrecia which is gorgeous at the moment and luckily seems to survive anything. The fuchsias I will take out and put back once the willows are established. I feel like Dr Evil plotting the overtaking of the world but it is only the bottom of my garden which is about 25 feet wide. I really should get a life.
I was on the hunt for vigorous evergreen climbers, vigorous climbers would do too. When I worked in Kentish Town in London in the 90's the head office was in a prefab. The handyman John planted a Russian Mile a Minute outside the kitchen window. That thing grew a foot a day and Kitty the tea lady cursed the fact it crept in the window no matter how much John hacked it back. I was fascinated by a plant that grew so pushy. When I read the description that it was aggressive and unfussy and thrived in poor soil, that was my kind of plant. I bought one a few years ago and planted in the shady corner where the sun simply never reaches. It grew steadily enough. But then we went on holidays and when we returned two weeks later it had grown into a monster. It ransacked the fence and the wall I was delighted. I love pruning. I can't help it but when I see a thing grow I have the urge to cut it back. It might be to do with the fact that I was defender on my GAA football team. I had no interest in scoring I just wanted to stop anyone else doing it. I snip at it every day when all else is quiet and it always gives me something to do. It's very difficult to get rid off or so the BBC gardening website promises but my middle son succeeded. He only ever cuts the grass when he wants money which means it could be cut three times a week or three times a month depending on his needs. He shows no discrimination and mows everything. He destroyed a thriving azalea, a newly planted rhubarb corm and my magnificent Mile a Minute. Like the Wicked Witch of the East, it shrivelled and died. The stump is still there but no life.
This spring with my renewed interest and zero patience for results and progress - they say gardening teaches you patience but the garden does what it pleases and you realise how little patience you actually have - I decided to buy another Mile a Minute. I tried five different garden centres around Cork, good respectable ones but none of them had it. One Centre went through the farce of ordering it for me but it wasn't 'included in the delivery'. After weeks of doing the rounds finally one Centre Manager confessed that they will never stock it the since they are so aggressive. I asked her to order it anyway and I would buy the entire order and she still refused. She then suggested that if I saw it growing in a friend's garden to ask to take a cutting. I never thought of that but then I never saw this plant in a friend's garden. There is a magnificent specimen growing over the The Star pub on Capwell and another one overhanging the link on the bridge. I work in UCC and I asked the gardener. He said it wasn't on the grounds but I could have a cutting of the evergreen jasmine in July. Leaving work one evening by the Gaol Cross gate I saw a vine poke through the railing. It looked like a young Mile a Minute. I photographed it with my phone and compared it to Google images, they matched. The next day I brought in rooting gel, plastic bag and secatures. I took in all 9 cuttings and two of them took. I am now the very delighted owner of two growing vines. I found the gentler sister in Hanley and it is growing well up a swingball pole I recycled but it is no where as fast as the Russian. It is plants like these that make gardening satisfying. You can keep your petunias and summer annuals I want rocket plants. If you walk along the corridor in UCC by the Aula Max you can see Ivy growing through the windows and it's enchanting. The Virginal creeper is allowed to grow over and around the diamond paned windows gradually blocking out the sunlight and it is very pretty. Some ivy founds its way through the gaps in the panes and is hanging down on the inside. Now that is my kind of plant.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Frugal Fatigue
Every January I go into post Christmas melt down. Pay day comes two weeks early in December to 'accommodate' Christmas but then it is followed by the longest, bleakest month of the year made even worse by the fact that there is now 6.5 weeks between your last pay day and the next. No wonder the last Monday before January's pay day is regarded as the most depressing day of the year.
Late December five years ago while wallowing in the post Christmas excess blues, I spent several days googling frugal websites and came across the book, The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. It had been mentioned by several of the blogs and so I ordered it on Amazon. Of course, if I had been paying attention to the blogs, I would have borrowed the book from the library or bought it second hand but with me it's all or nothing, I have to have it now. I went on to learn that being impatient is one of the reasons why I urgently needed frugality in my life. The book is wonderful. It was compiled between 1990 - 1996 based on newsletters she wrote to her subscribers and so some parts are out dated and since she lives in Massachusetts many of the tips are unique to America. However, the philosophy is sound and the advice to simply not spend money is timeless. I keep her book next to my bed and reach for it whenever I am in a trough and need to feel inspired.
My favourite blog is Mr Money www.mrmoneymustache.com. This guy has been doing frugality for years and so his threads are excellent. When I hit frugality fatigue at the end of February I found a thread on his blog about this subject and it helped to put things in perspective. You need to ask yourself how urgent is your debt and how urgently do you need to deal with it and he has a 5 point scale to evaluate this. At the extreme end of the scale, if your debt is so bad/income so low and your priority is to get food on the table then you are in 'Your hair is on fire' mode and cannot afford to have frugal fatigue. If however, you are further up the scale then maybe you have cut back too much and have the wriggle room to ease up in one area of your budget.
Amy from the Tightwad Gazette suggests starting out gently; finding those areas you can cut back and do so gently little by little until you are just comfortable and then a cut back little bit more. I cut back on everything. I refused to turn on the heating; hot water bottles for everyone. Every night I unplugged all the vampire energy eaters in the house i.e. those appliances on standby until my husband protested, "Enough!" Unplugging Sky cable meant all the back episodes to The Sopranos he had set to record were not happening. He reasoned, "How much electricity are you saving? 32 Euros a year? I'll give you that if you will leave the TV alone." Of course that defeated the purpose.
On a day that wasn't raining and I didn't have to drive the boys to school/college I took the bus into work. The fare is 2.40 Euros each way. To fill up a full tank of petrol costs me approximately45 Euros and that lasts me three weeks even though I average four trips per day. It was cheaper to drive to work rather than take the bus.
The demoralising aspect of reading these money saving tips is that I was doing most of them already i.e. taking a packed lunch to work, eating out less, don't smoke, don't drink alcohol (hardly), keeping up with the Jones. So there was nothing I could do that would drastically save money NOW. Also the more I read on how not to waste money it dawned on me that most people do this stuff already i.e. re use zips lock bags, bring a packed lunch for long journeys, stay in other people's homes when visiting rather than a hotel. I was just late to the party.
This January however, I had to be particularly ruthless as I have one son in college in Boston for the year and while we knew it was coming and had planned for it, getting through each month was harder than ever. Christmas day I locked the credit card in a drawer. Back at work, I finally bought into the 'Latte factor' and brought in my own coffee.
New year's resolution for 2015 - no new clothes for a year. This won't be hard as I am a hoarder. The son in Boston came home for the Christmas break. I de-cluttered his bedroom and filled six large plastic bags. He's a hoarder too. In a fit of generosity I then did my middle son's bedroom although I swore I wouldn't. He's not a hoarder just plain messy but he is doing state exams this year and a stressed minds need lots of space. I filled nine bags from his room.
I then tackled my own room. To my cringing embarrassment after I pulled out everything from the wardrobe including those shelves I can't reach, I found shirts still in their cellophane wrapping that I bought in Hong Kong when I still lived there in 2005. Ten years ago! They were shoved into the back to make room for the new shirts I was buying "because I needed them." Thank God I was alone when I made this discovery. I then realised two things 1) I have more than I need and 2) I have everything I need. This had the happy effect of overcoming the feelings of deprivation I get periodically which drive me to spend in order to feel better.
Another thing I have learned and I suspect every person over 18 knows this too: know what is in your cupboards. Every week I go food shopping which I detest so I never plan it or do a list. I grab my stash of recyclable shopping bags and head to the supermarket in a bad mood. I walk up and down every aisle and pick out what looks familiar and nice. Husband is in charge of unpacking the bags when I got home. As he put away the tinned tuna, he laughed and turned to me, "How much tuna do you think we have?" I shrugged and said, "A couple of tins." He opened the cupboard door wider to reveal 14 tins of tuna. Nobody was eating the stuff but I was assumed every single time I went shopping and reached the tinned tuna section, "Oh yeah, tuna is always useful". I have since cleared out the cupboards, binned the out of date stuff: one tin of drinking chocolate had an expiry date October 1996. On the 1st of the month, I head to Aldi and stock up on a month's supply of non perishables i.e. pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, toilet rolls, etc and my weekly grocery envelope is for butter, milk, eggs and bread. We rarely run out of something now but if we do, it is not a crisis. It does not have to be replaced NOW, there are alternatives and you can do without for a day or two... I love that World War II saying 'Make it do, make it last, use it up or do without'.
In a bizarre twist, when the son in Boston came home for Christmas I couldn't wait to ask him how did he managed his money. There were originally four tenants sharing the house but after a month one of the boys got homesick and came home leaving the other three having to come up with the monthly rent themselves. To his credit, my son did not ask us to increase his allowance. When I asked him how he managed. He told me he allowed himself so many dollars per week to eat and if he ran out of money he simply ate Cheerios until his next pay day. When I asked if he minded that he shrugged, and said, "That's how it is." I couldn't leave it alone and probed further, "But do you not feel deprived?" He looked surprised and said no. Suddenly he sat up and looking at me straight in the eye said, "You're very wasteful, you know? All those products you have upstairs in your bathroom, you don't need half of that crap. I bought one bottle of shampoo in September for a dollar; it's my shampoo and shower gel and soap all in one and I made that last the whole semester." I was stunned and humbled but kind of proud. I have a frugal son! Where did he come from? Are frugal people born with a special gene or do they only arise when money is tight. I know for a fact if I won a lottery of 10 million it would be gone by the end of the year. I only do it out of necessity and while I do get a sense of achievement of making it to the end of the month if I didn't have to do it I wouldn't.
Frugality is a mind set. There's a whole philosophy behind it which helps keep me motivated for now. Those who have that mind set and live by that philosophy even when it is not needed anymore will have the last laugh.
At the end of January my credit card bill only had one page instead of the usual four or five. I thought there was a mistake until I remembered, "Of course, I haven't used it." That was such a great feeling.
Another system I used to get through January was the envelope system. Several frugal blogs talk about Dave Ramsey's Envelope System.
The hardest part about being monthly paid is that when the money runs out there is loads of month left. When I first left school I was weekly paid and it was much easier to manage your money. You got paid on the Thursday and even though it would all be gone by Monday, it didn't matter as you only had to hang on until Thursday. The envelope system is like giving yourself weekly pay. On the 1st January, after allocating for the big bills paid by direct debit I withdrew enough cash to cover groceries, petrol, bus money for the kids and other emergency / miscellaneous expenses. It works. It is empowering to know that whatever gets thrown up in the course of the month you have the critical things covered i.e. food on the table and getting to work/school. It makes you feel you are the one in control over YOUR money; you have enough as opposed to being paralysed by the thought that you have no money.
I now get a buzz out of going to the supermarket with my 20 Euros 'allowance' and a list. Having only 20 Euros cash really concentrates the mind. You treat it like it is all you have left and your mission is to feed your family on it. You really do look for the best value for money, you are forced to decide what is 'essential' and what you can live without for now. It taps into your creative genes. There is a fantastic blog about this written by a A Girl Called Jack who simply had to live on 10 pounds (sterling UK) per week and she did it. It certainly put things into perspective for me and it is inspiring knowing that these things can be done. I read on some blogs how budgeting can be fun. I thought that was stretching it. But I did get a kick trying to get all that was on my list - it wasn't a long list but still - within my 20 Euros allowance. I probably did look a bit batty scrutinising the price per kilo notices, getting down on my haunches to check out the same product, different packaging on the lower shelves and re tracing my steps in order to put something back or change it for something cheaper. I don't know that I will continue to have the energy to do this long term but when your 'hair is on fire' it becomes urgent and I like urgent.
I gave myself a petrol allowance of 40 Euros a week only to find that 40 Euros lasts me two weeks and when pushed even further 45 Euros now lasts me three weeks. My middle son decided he didn't need grinds anymore and that was a welcome saving. His mocks are on at the moment and so that may change when his results come out later in March. The envelope system gives me peace of mind. We are not out of the woods yet nor is there light at the end of the tunnel but one step at a time.
This post set out to be about frugal fatigue but I am now reminded of all the good things about being frugal and so I will persevere. My mother's birthday was at the end of February and my extended family got together to have lunch at Hayfield Manor. I nearly choked at the potential cost until my husband pointed that I was losing perspective as well as my sense of humour. Frugality is not just about managing your money carefully it is also about knowing what is really important in your life and cutting out the clutter that gets in the way of enjoying what is valuable to you. As long as you are lean and careful in the ordinary everyday stuff you can afford to spend on the special occasions with the people that matter.
Another good point made on the thread 'Frugal Fatigue' on Mr Money Moustache was made by a man who said that he was at a particular expensive period in his live i.e. he had teenage children going to college. That put it into perspective for me. Right now half of our net income is going into the education costs of our children. Some day - not anytime soon - they will be off our hands and independent. This is an expensive time for us and this too will pass. And when it does, I will probably want these days back again.
Late December five years ago while wallowing in the post Christmas excess blues, I spent several days googling frugal websites and came across the book, The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. It had been mentioned by several of the blogs and so I ordered it on Amazon. Of course, if I had been paying attention to the blogs, I would have borrowed the book from the library or bought it second hand but with me it's all or nothing, I have to have it now. I went on to learn that being impatient is one of the reasons why I urgently needed frugality in my life. The book is wonderful. It was compiled between 1990 - 1996 based on newsletters she wrote to her subscribers and so some parts are out dated and since she lives in Massachusetts many of the tips are unique to America. However, the philosophy is sound and the advice to simply not spend money is timeless. I keep her book next to my bed and reach for it whenever I am in a trough and need to feel inspired.
My favourite blog is Mr Money www.mrmoneymustache.com. This guy has been doing frugality for years and so his threads are excellent. When I hit frugality fatigue at the end of February I found a thread on his blog about this subject and it helped to put things in perspective. You need to ask yourself how urgent is your debt and how urgently do you need to deal with it and he has a 5 point scale to evaluate this. At the extreme end of the scale, if your debt is so bad/income so low and your priority is to get food on the table then you are in 'Your hair is on fire' mode and cannot afford to have frugal fatigue. If however, you are further up the scale then maybe you have cut back too much and have the wriggle room to ease up in one area of your budget.
Amy from the Tightwad Gazette suggests starting out gently; finding those areas you can cut back and do so gently little by little until you are just comfortable and then a cut back little bit more. I cut back on everything. I refused to turn on the heating; hot water bottles for everyone. Every night I unplugged all the vampire energy eaters in the house i.e. those appliances on standby until my husband protested, "Enough!" Unplugging Sky cable meant all the back episodes to The Sopranos he had set to record were not happening. He reasoned, "How much electricity are you saving? 32 Euros a year? I'll give you that if you will leave the TV alone." Of course that defeated the purpose.
On a day that wasn't raining and I didn't have to drive the boys to school/college I took the bus into work. The fare is 2.40 Euros each way. To fill up a full tank of petrol costs me approximately45 Euros and that lasts me three weeks even though I average four trips per day. It was cheaper to drive to work rather than take the bus.
The demoralising aspect of reading these money saving tips is that I was doing most of them already i.e. taking a packed lunch to work, eating out less, don't smoke, don't drink alcohol (hardly), keeping up with the Jones. So there was nothing I could do that would drastically save money NOW. Also the more I read on how not to waste money it dawned on me that most people do this stuff already i.e. re use zips lock bags, bring a packed lunch for long journeys, stay in other people's homes when visiting rather than a hotel. I was just late to the party.
This January however, I had to be particularly ruthless as I have one son in college in Boston for the year and while we knew it was coming and had planned for it, getting through each month was harder than ever. Christmas day I locked the credit card in a drawer. Back at work, I finally bought into the 'Latte factor' and brought in my own coffee.
New year's resolution for 2015 - no new clothes for a year. This won't be hard as I am a hoarder. The son in Boston came home for the Christmas break. I de-cluttered his bedroom and filled six large plastic bags. He's a hoarder too. In a fit of generosity I then did my middle son's bedroom although I swore I wouldn't. He's not a hoarder just plain messy but he is doing state exams this year and a stressed minds need lots of space. I filled nine bags from his room.
I then tackled my own room. To my cringing embarrassment after I pulled out everything from the wardrobe including those shelves I can't reach, I found shirts still in their cellophane wrapping that I bought in Hong Kong when I still lived there in 2005. Ten years ago! They were shoved into the back to make room for the new shirts I was buying "because I needed them." Thank God I was alone when I made this discovery. I then realised two things 1) I have more than I need and 2) I have everything I need. This had the happy effect of overcoming the feelings of deprivation I get periodically which drive me to spend in order to feel better.
Another thing I have learned and I suspect every person over 18 knows this too: know what is in your cupboards. Every week I go food shopping which I detest so I never plan it or do a list. I grab my stash of recyclable shopping bags and head to the supermarket in a bad mood. I walk up and down every aisle and pick out what looks familiar and nice. Husband is in charge of unpacking the bags when I got home. As he put away the tinned tuna, he laughed and turned to me, "How much tuna do you think we have?" I shrugged and said, "A couple of tins." He opened the cupboard door wider to reveal 14 tins of tuna. Nobody was eating the stuff but I was assumed every single time I went shopping and reached the tinned tuna section, "Oh yeah, tuna is always useful". I have since cleared out the cupboards, binned the out of date stuff: one tin of drinking chocolate had an expiry date October 1996. On the 1st of the month, I head to Aldi and stock up on a month's supply of non perishables i.e. pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, toilet rolls, etc and my weekly grocery envelope is for butter, milk, eggs and bread. We rarely run out of something now but if we do, it is not a crisis. It does not have to be replaced NOW, there are alternatives and you can do without for a day or two... I love that World War II saying 'Make it do, make it last, use it up or do without'.
In a bizarre twist, when the son in Boston came home for Christmas I couldn't wait to ask him how did he managed his money. There were originally four tenants sharing the house but after a month one of the boys got homesick and came home leaving the other three having to come up with the monthly rent themselves. To his credit, my son did not ask us to increase his allowance. When I asked him how he managed. He told me he allowed himself so many dollars per week to eat and if he ran out of money he simply ate Cheerios until his next pay day. When I asked if he minded that he shrugged, and said, "That's how it is." I couldn't leave it alone and probed further, "But do you not feel deprived?" He looked surprised and said no. Suddenly he sat up and looking at me straight in the eye said, "You're very wasteful, you know? All those products you have upstairs in your bathroom, you don't need half of that crap. I bought one bottle of shampoo in September for a dollar; it's my shampoo and shower gel and soap all in one and I made that last the whole semester." I was stunned and humbled but kind of proud. I have a frugal son! Where did he come from? Are frugal people born with a special gene or do they only arise when money is tight. I know for a fact if I won a lottery of 10 million it would be gone by the end of the year. I only do it out of necessity and while I do get a sense of achievement of making it to the end of the month if I didn't have to do it I wouldn't.
Frugality is a mind set. There's a whole philosophy behind it which helps keep me motivated for now. Those who have that mind set and live by that philosophy even when it is not needed anymore will have the last laugh.
At the end of January my credit card bill only had one page instead of the usual four or five. I thought there was a mistake until I remembered, "Of course, I haven't used it." That was such a great feeling.
Another system I used to get through January was the envelope system. Several frugal blogs talk about Dave Ramsey's Envelope System.
The hardest part about being monthly paid is that when the money runs out there is loads of month left. When I first left school I was weekly paid and it was much easier to manage your money. You got paid on the Thursday and even though it would all be gone by Monday, it didn't matter as you only had to hang on until Thursday. The envelope system is like giving yourself weekly pay. On the 1st January, after allocating for the big bills paid by direct debit I withdrew enough cash to cover groceries, petrol, bus money for the kids and other emergency / miscellaneous expenses. It works. It is empowering to know that whatever gets thrown up in the course of the month you have the critical things covered i.e. food on the table and getting to work/school. It makes you feel you are the one in control over YOUR money; you have enough as opposed to being paralysed by the thought that you have no money.
I now get a buzz out of going to the supermarket with my 20 Euros 'allowance' and a list. Having only 20 Euros cash really concentrates the mind. You treat it like it is all you have left and your mission is to feed your family on it. You really do look for the best value for money, you are forced to decide what is 'essential' and what you can live without for now. It taps into your creative genes. There is a fantastic blog about this written by a A Girl Called Jack who simply had to live on 10 pounds (sterling UK) per week and she did it. It certainly put things into perspective for me and it is inspiring knowing that these things can be done. I read on some blogs how budgeting can be fun. I thought that was stretching it. But I did get a kick trying to get all that was on my list - it wasn't a long list but still - within my 20 Euros allowance. I probably did look a bit batty scrutinising the price per kilo notices, getting down on my haunches to check out the same product, different packaging on the lower shelves and re tracing my steps in order to put something back or change it for something cheaper. I don't know that I will continue to have the energy to do this long term but when your 'hair is on fire' it becomes urgent and I like urgent.
I gave myself a petrol allowance of 40 Euros a week only to find that 40 Euros lasts me two weeks and when pushed even further 45 Euros now lasts me three weeks. My middle son decided he didn't need grinds anymore and that was a welcome saving. His mocks are on at the moment and so that may change when his results come out later in March. The envelope system gives me peace of mind. We are not out of the woods yet nor is there light at the end of the tunnel but one step at a time.
This post set out to be about frugal fatigue but I am now reminded of all the good things about being frugal and so I will persevere. My mother's birthday was at the end of February and my extended family got together to have lunch at Hayfield Manor. I nearly choked at the potential cost until my husband pointed that I was losing perspective as well as my sense of humour. Frugality is not just about managing your money carefully it is also about knowing what is really important in your life and cutting out the clutter that gets in the way of enjoying what is valuable to you. As long as you are lean and careful in the ordinary everyday stuff you can afford to spend on the special occasions with the people that matter.
Another good point made on the thread 'Frugal Fatigue' on Mr Money Moustache was made by a man who said that he was at a particular expensive period in his live i.e. he had teenage children going to college. That put it into perspective for me. Right now half of our net income is going into the education costs of our children. Some day - not anytime soon - they will be off our hands and independent. This is an expensive time for us and this too will pass. And when it does, I will probably want these days back again.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Swine Flu 2009
Over the Jazz weekend, my family including Granny headed down to Kinsale for lunch and an afternoon of jazz. Setting off from home, my ten year was his usual bickering self. Twenty five minutes later he climbed out of the car whinging and listless. We dismissed his moods to the fact that he came out the worst from a bloody battle with his older brother.
All through lunch he moaned about how tired he was and refused to eat. We thought he was just sulking. He pleaded to go home. Granny noted his red eyes and scolded him for staying up too late playing video games. He gave up and fell asleep in front of the band blasting Gershwin tunes.
At 4 o’clock I gave in and walked him back to the car where he fell asleep again on my lap for 40 minutes. Back home, his temperature soared and I put him to bed with Calpol. He slept solid right through to 6 am at which time he moaned he had a head ache and was still very hot. It was then I realised he was actually sick. I rang the doctor and left a message to make an appointment. My 15 year old had been complaining about a rash on his stomach for the past week and I made an appointment for him too.
An hour later, the ten year old skips down the stairs bright as a button and announces he’s "starving" and savaged a stack of pancakes. I couldn’t believe the change in him and even though he still had a temperature I considered canceling the doctor’s appointment.
The next morning, at my older son's appointment the doctor examined his rash and announced it was shingles. I was stunned. “But shingles is for old people.,” I said. Apart from the rash he was not affected by it but was told to avoid grandparents for a while.
The ten year old’s appointment was in the afternoon. He no longer had any outward signs of illness. I was almost embarrassed to take him. However, the continual high temperature, his red eyes and the suddenness illness the day before was enough: the doctor looked at me and said with raised eyebrows , “I think it is the H1N1 Virus.” I looked at her puzzled. A vague recognition flickered in my memory.
“Are you telling me he has Swine Flu?” I said.
“Ah, Mammy you are after saying it now!” clucked the doctor.
A spasm of horror passed over my son’s face and he burst into tears. “I’m going to die!” he bawled. “Ah, now stop that!” said the doctor. “You’re the fifth patient I’ve had today with Swine Flu. If you were going to die, then half of my practice would be dead.”
There was no consoling him. I led him howling from the clinic. In the car he said, “I told you not to take me to the doctor, I only had a headache! I’m going to die now.”
I rolled my eyes to heaven and said, “You’re not going to die.” I had to pull the car in several times on the way home to comfort my hysterical boy.
“Are you worried I’m going to die?” he asked.
"No."
“So you don’t care about me?”
“I do care about you but you are not going to die.”
“What will you do when I die?”
“I will be sad but you are not going to die.”
We arrive back home and as I pulled into the driveway we could see the two older boys wrestling in the front room. My son looked at me with blood shot eyes and said, “Please don’t tell them.” I agreed not to say anything but said he should go straight to his room and avoid contact. As soon as I opened the front door, he shot upstairs.
I airily announced to the boys that their brother had a cold and they should keep away unless they wanted to catch it themselves. The brothers shrugged their shoulders and resumed mauling each other.
At 7.30 pm Manchester United were playing some Russian team. The ten year old, a big Man United fan desperately wanted to watch but couldn’t share the same air space as his brothers. Not being able to keep up the deceit any longer, he whispered, “I think we should tell them.” I agreed.
While he hid behind a chair, I summoned his brothers into the kitchen. They came in reluctantly, impatient at being torn away from the match. I said, “Your brother wants you to know what is really wrong with him, he has Swine Flu.” They froze in their tracks and stared at their younger brother in open horror. Younger brother cringed and shrank further behind the chair. The 15 year old looked at me and said, “Aren’t you worried?” I told him that I wasn’t even though I would be the one most likely to catch it since I was in constant contact with him. He looked at me and then at his cowering brother and back again. He asked what was for dinner and left the room.
The ten year old couldn’t believe his luck. He thought he would be as welcome as mud. I pulled a chair into the hall, wrapped my sick little man in his Man United blanket, put a woolly hat on his head, a hot water bottle in his lap and that’s where he watched the match.
The following day, after a great night’s sleep he got very bold and became skittish as a kitten as he taunted his brothers with his disease. Wherever he went, they immediately left the room and moaned to me. I got very ratty trying to separate them and eventually gave up. If one is sick, they might as well be all sick.
I thought disclosure would be the best policy and rang Granny who took off like a bat out of hell to the chemist and stocked up on Rubex Vitamin C tablets, oranges, lemons and honey.
My childminder’s children were delighted and hoped to catch it by Sunday.
My parents were well impressed with the array of illnesses in our house but were happy to avoid us for the next week or so.
I also rang my sister in law who is a doctor. I couldn’t understand how my son had Swine Flu when he had so few symptoms. She told me she gets on average ten cases of flu a day and although some cases are very bad, people die from flu in one form or another every year. The media have everybody terrified and made it a taboo illness. Having said that, she told me we were lucky and got off lightly.
Amen to that.
All through lunch he moaned about how tired he was and refused to eat. We thought he was just sulking. He pleaded to go home. Granny noted his red eyes and scolded him for staying up too late playing video games. He gave up and fell asleep in front of the band blasting Gershwin tunes.
At 4 o’clock I gave in and walked him back to the car where he fell asleep again on my lap for 40 minutes. Back home, his temperature soared and I put him to bed with Calpol. He slept solid right through to 6 am at which time he moaned he had a head ache and was still very hot. It was then I realised he was actually sick. I rang the doctor and left a message to make an appointment. My 15 year old had been complaining about a rash on his stomach for the past week and I made an appointment for him too.
An hour later, the ten year old skips down the stairs bright as a button and announces he’s "starving" and savaged a stack of pancakes. I couldn’t believe the change in him and even though he still had a temperature I considered canceling the doctor’s appointment.
The next morning, at my older son's appointment the doctor examined his rash and announced it was shingles. I was stunned. “But shingles is for old people.,” I said. Apart from the rash he was not affected by it but was told to avoid grandparents for a while.
The ten year old’s appointment was in the afternoon. He no longer had any outward signs of illness. I was almost embarrassed to take him. However, the continual high temperature, his red eyes and the suddenness illness the day before was enough: the doctor looked at me and said with raised eyebrows , “I think it is the H1N1 Virus.” I looked at her puzzled. A vague recognition flickered in my memory.
“Are you telling me he has Swine Flu?” I said.
“Ah, Mammy you are after saying it now!” clucked the doctor.
A spasm of horror passed over my son’s face and he burst into tears. “I’m going to die!” he bawled. “Ah, now stop that!” said the doctor. “You’re the fifth patient I’ve had today with Swine Flu. If you were going to die, then half of my practice would be dead.”
There was no consoling him. I led him howling from the clinic. In the car he said, “I told you not to take me to the doctor, I only had a headache! I’m going to die now.”
I rolled my eyes to heaven and said, “You’re not going to die.” I had to pull the car in several times on the way home to comfort my hysterical boy.
“Are you worried I’m going to die?” he asked.
"No."
“So you don’t care about me?”
“I do care about you but you are not going to die.”
“What will you do when I die?”
“I will be sad but you are not going to die.”
We arrive back home and as I pulled into the driveway we could see the two older boys wrestling in the front room. My son looked at me with blood shot eyes and said, “Please don’t tell them.” I agreed not to say anything but said he should go straight to his room and avoid contact. As soon as I opened the front door, he shot upstairs.
I airily announced to the boys that their brother had a cold and they should keep away unless they wanted to catch it themselves. The brothers shrugged their shoulders and resumed mauling each other.
At 7.30 pm Manchester United were playing some Russian team. The ten year old, a big Man United fan desperately wanted to watch but couldn’t share the same air space as his brothers. Not being able to keep up the deceit any longer, he whispered, “I think we should tell them.” I agreed.
While he hid behind a chair, I summoned his brothers into the kitchen. They came in reluctantly, impatient at being torn away from the match. I said, “Your brother wants you to know what is really wrong with him, he has Swine Flu.” They froze in their tracks and stared at their younger brother in open horror. Younger brother cringed and shrank further behind the chair. The 15 year old looked at me and said, “Aren’t you worried?” I told him that I wasn’t even though I would be the one most likely to catch it since I was in constant contact with him. He looked at me and then at his cowering brother and back again. He asked what was for dinner and left the room.
The ten year old couldn’t believe his luck. He thought he would be as welcome as mud. I pulled a chair into the hall, wrapped my sick little man in his Man United blanket, put a woolly hat on his head, a hot water bottle in his lap and that’s where he watched the match.
The following day, after a great night’s sleep he got very bold and became skittish as a kitten as he taunted his brothers with his disease. Wherever he went, they immediately left the room and moaned to me. I got very ratty trying to separate them and eventually gave up. If one is sick, they might as well be all sick.
I thought disclosure would be the best policy and rang Granny who took off like a bat out of hell to the chemist and stocked up on Rubex Vitamin C tablets, oranges, lemons and honey.
My childminder’s children were delighted and hoped to catch it by Sunday.
My parents were well impressed with the array of illnesses in our house but were happy to avoid us for the next week or so.
I also rang my sister in law who is a doctor. I couldn’t understand how my son had Swine Flu when he had so few symptoms. She told me she gets on average ten cases of flu a day and although some cases are very bad, people die from flu in one form or another every year. The media have everybody terrified and made it a taboo illness. Having said that, she told me we were lucky and got off lightly.
Amen to that.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Driving Parents Mad
It all started over breakfast when my eldest son borrowed a library book from my middle son. Middle was anxious to get it back. Eldest said piously, “You have to share.” In retaliation, Middle refused to eat his breakfast.
Finally, Eldest removed himself off to school, Middle got his book back and peace was restored. Youngest son then bounced into the kitchen, bright as a rocket but still undressed. I ignored him. I was mooching into my Special K when he politely took out a folder from his school bag and showed me the list of things that he needed for his swimming lessons which were starting that day. I mumbled, “You know where to find them.” And he did, astonishingly enough.
When Middle finally stirred himself to get dressed he found that Youngest was wearing his tracksuit top. Youngest’s top had holes in the elbows and said that his teacher told him that he could no longer wear holes. Middle son wouldn’t care if the item of clothing was slashed from armpit to wrist but he was not going to school in a top with the sleeves shrunk to his elbows. I agreed with him. Rather than wrench the top off Youngest, I pleaded to his good side – I know he has one – to swap. He smiled triumphantly but refused. We managed to find another top, without holes.
Back downstairs, Middle launched a fresh attack. I had promised to buy him a new tracksuit the day before but with the visit to the library and the doctor, we forgot the tracksuit. I countered with a gentle, ‘you never reminded me’ and it all got bent out of shape very rapidly.
I hustled them into the car. We joined the snail trail to school and the recriminations continued. I kept reminding myself that I was the adult.
Then Middle said, “I have to pee” and Youngest demanded, “Are we there yet?” when it was obvious we weren’t. I ignored them. They up the barrage of useless comments. I responded finally with a joke but it only made things worse. And then I snapped.. I gave them the hairdryer treatment. They both shrank back into their seats and babbled their apologies. It turned out that the library book they were reading was Bart Simpon’s Guide to Life and they were on the chapter How to annoy your parents. It worked.
Finally, Eldest removed himself off to school, Middle got his book back and peace was restored. Youngest son then bounced into the kitchen, bright as a rocket but still undressed. I ignored him. I was mooching into my Special K when he politely took out a folder from his school bag and showed me the list of things that he needed for his swimming lessons which were starting that day. I mumbled, “You know where to find them.” And he did, astonishingly enough.
When Middle finally stirred himself to get dressed he found that Youngest was wearing his tracksuit top. Youngest’s top had holes in the elbows and said that his teacher told him that he could no longer wear holes. Middle son wouldn’t care if the item of clothing was slashed from armpit to wrist but he was not going to school in a top with the sleeves shrunk to his elbows. I agreed with him. Rather than wrench the top off Youngest, I pleaded to his good side – I know he has one – to swap. He smiled triumphantly but refused. We managed to find another top, without holes.
Back downstairs, Middle launched a fresh attack. I had promised to buy him a new tracksuit the day before but with the visit to the library and the doctor, we forgot the tracksuit. I countered with a gentle, ‘you never reminded me’ and it all got bent out of shape very rapidly.
I hustled them into the car. We joined the snail trail to school and the recriminations continued. I kept reminding myself that I was the adult.
Then Middle said, “I have to pee” and Youngest demanded, “Are we there yet?” when it was obvious we weren’t. I ignored them. They up the barrage of useless comments. I responded finally with a joke but it only made things worse. And then I snapped.. I gave them the hairdryer treatment. They both shrank back into their seats and babbled their apologies. It turned out that the library book they were reading was Bart Simpon’s Guide to Life and they were on the chapter How to annoy your parents. It worked.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Cork Under Water November 2010
Driving into work on Friday, South Terrace was like a lake with dustbins floating away. My boys wanted me to fly through it but I crawled like everyone else.
The Lough was swollen with water lapping out of the northern lip. At least it was calm; the previous day the wind was whipping up waves and sprays of water Hawaii style; the ducks had to take refuge on the grass.
College Road had come to a standstill and all the side roads feeding on it were grid locked. A pedestrian advised me to turn back. I managed a three point turn in a space no wider than my elbow and tried higher ground. I parked the car on a surprisingly deserted Glasheen Road and saw a garda come towards me on his mobile phone. I told him I had no disks but that I would be back in a minute. He said, “With the day that’s in it, you’re the least of my problems.” I scampered off.
I crossed College Road which was now ground to a halt with some very fed up looking drivers: no one was going anywhere. Campus was as quiet as a bank holiday. I saw a pheasant sauntering along by the library.
I made it into work. Students that made it in were hailed as heroes and greeted like old friends although one boy from Limerick was upset as there were no public buses operating in or out of Cork and he was ‘stranded’ for the weekend.
My boss told me to go down and look at the Glucksman Art Galleru. The river had burst its banks and covered the walkway and the entire field around it. The Glucksman café in the basement was completely submerged and water was gushing over the lower steps Niagara Falls style. People were milling around in wonder and taking photographs with their phones.
Down by the college gates, the entire Western Road was a river three feet deep flowing UP towards Washington Street. It was a sight you had to witness just to believe that it was possible. There were students wading across thigh deep and the water gushing into their wellies. You wondered what was so urgent: there was water in every direction.
By lunch time, the water level dropped to massive puddle level and pedestrians could walk around the edges. Fire brigades and ambulances charged westwards down the Western Road sending waves of water over our feet and two helicopters circled overhead. Households and business were pumping water out of their front doors and taking delivery of sandbags. It was like Darfur.
Somebody with a very good camera took photos at first light that morning from the top of Jury's Hotel and emailed them to friends and family. Their shock value was such that by 10.00 am those photos flew around the office, then Cork and by lunchtime they were coming back to us from England, Singapore, the US and Dublin.
The Lough was swollen with water lapping out of the northern lip. At least it was calm; the previous day the wind was whipping up waves and sprays of water Hawaii style; the ducks had to take refuge on the grass.
College Road had come to a standstill and all the side roads feeding on it were grid locked. A pedestrian advised me to turn back. I managed a three point turn in a space no wider than my elbow and tried higher ground. I parked the car on a surprisingly deserted Glasheen Road and saw a garda come towards me on his mobile phone. I told him I had no disks but that I would be back in a minute. He said, “With the day that’s in it, you’re the least of my problems.” I scampered off.
I crossed College Road which was now ground to a halt with some very fed up looking drivers: no one was going anywhere. Campus was as quiet as a bank holiday. I saw a pheasant sauntering along by the library.
I made it into work. Students that made it in were hailed as heroes and greeted like old friends although one boy from Limerick was upset as there were no public buses operating in or out of Cork and he was ‘stranded’ for the weekend.
My boss told me to go down and look at the Glucksman Art Galleru. The river had burst its banks and covered the walkway and the entire field around it. The Glucksman café in the basement was completely submerged and water was gushing over the lower steps Niagara Falls style. People were milling around in wonder and taking photographs with their phones.
Down by the college gates, the entire Western Road was a river three feet deep flowing UP towards Washington Street. It was a sight you had to witness just to believe that it was possible. There were students wading across thigh deep and the water gushing into their wellies. You wondered what was so urgent: there was water in every direction.
By lunch time, the water level dropped to massive puddle level and pedestrians could walk around the edges. Fire brigades and ambulances charged westwards down the Western Road sending waves of water over our feet and two helicopters circled overhead. Households and business were pumping water out of their front doors and taking delivery of sandbags. It was like Darfur.
Somebody with a very good camera took photos at first light that morning from the top of Jury's Hotel and emailed them to friends and family. Their shock value was such that by 10.00 am those photos flew around the office, then Cork and by lunchtime they were coming back to us from England, Singapore, the US and Dublin.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Accident Prone
At the weekend, my son was playing football. He jumped up to clear the ball with his head but fell to the ground in agony. He said his spine was hurting him. The coach and I were afraid to move him at first but eventually he consented to being hauled to his feet.
To be on the safe side, I decided to take him to the hospital. By the time, we got to the hospital, my son was moving his head freely and I knew that he was not paralysed. While we were waiting to be seen, a man came in, hugging his left arm closely to his body. He ‘ouched’ and ‘oohed’ his way to the reception area. Although he talked loudly, I could not hear the nature of his complaint. I heard him yell at the receptionist, “It’s shite, just shite”. Then it was our turn to see the doctor.
The doctor reckoned that my son had no serious damage but to be on the safe side, she sent us upstairs for an x-ray. We took the lift to the 2nd floor and shared a couch with a Chinese man who was reading a newspaper. A few minutes went by when the lift doors opened and the man with the sore arm stepped out. He sat on the couch on the far side of the Chinese man.
I leaned forward, "What happened to you?” The man who was Scottish, told me that he was on his motorbike when he had gone around a corner, hit a wet patch and crashed to the ground on his left shoulder. “I’ve broken my leg three times," he said, "but that is nothing compared to the agony I’m experiencing now. I’ve been on a boat where the boom smashed into my face. I lost seven of my teeth but that is nothing to this pain.”
The Chinese man hiding behind the newspaper giggled. The Scots man looked at him and said, “Do you not find that when you wear glasses, the rain gets on the lens and it's difficult to see?”
“You can always wear contacts.”
“Oh, I can’t, my eyes are that sensitive; it's agony for me to put anything near them.”
At that moment, a Chinese nurse appeared at the doorway of a consultation room holding a file, “Robert Shite? We’re ready for you now.”
To be on the safe side, I decided to take him to the hospital. By the time, we got to the hospital, my son was moving his head freely and I knew that he was not paralysed. While we were waiting to be seen, a man came in, hugging his left arm closely to his body. He ‘ouched’ and ‘oohed’ his way to the reception area. Although he talked loudly, I could not hear the nature of his complaint. I heard him yell at the receptionist, “It’s shite, just shite”. Then it was our turn to see the doctor.
The doctor reckoned that my son had no serious damage but to be on the safe side, she sent us upstairs for an x-ray. We took the lift to the 2nd floor and shared a couch with a Chinese man who was reading a newspaper. A few minutes went by when the lift doors opened and the man with the sore arm stepped out. He sat on the couch on the far side of the Chinese man.
I leaned forward, "What happened to you?” The man who was Scottish, told me that he was on his motorbike when he had gone around a corner, hit a wet patch and crashed to the ground on his left shoulder. “I’ve broken my leg three times," he said, "but that is nothing compared to the agony I’m experiencing now. I’ve been on a boat where the boom smashed into my face. I lost seven of my teeth but that is nothing to this pain.”
The Chinese man hiding behind the newspaper giggled. The Scots man looked at him and said, “Do you not find that when you wear glasses, the rain gets on the lens and it's difficult to see?”
“You can always wear contacts.”
“Oh, I can’t, my eyes are that sensitive; it's agony for me to put anything near them.”
At that moment, a Chinese nurse appeared at the doorway of a consultation room holding a file, “Robert Shite? We’re ready for you now.”
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Striking a Blow for the Irish Consumer
It was our 18th wedding anniversary and my husband and I went out to dinner. We found it surprisingly difficult to get a booking but finally managed to get a table in a restaurant in town. I usually go for fish but decided that I needed the iron and ordered a fillet steak. However, when the steak arrived it was sirloin. I felt bad for the waitress thinking that maybe I hadn’t made my order clear and she might now get into trouble. I called her back nonetheless and explained the mistake. She was very pleasant about it and took my plate back to the kitchen. She came back two minutes later but instead of a fillet, it was the same steak as before doubled over. I stared at it and thought, ‘Is there really someone back there in the kitchen who thinks that I am not going to notice this?’
I know that I am not the first to make this observation but the Irish take a lot of crap. We are met daily with sloppy service from surly assistants; charged higher prices than elsewhere in Europe for food and products that are not always of equally high standard and we get fobbed off with laughable excuses as to why things don’t work or someone hasn’t turned up when they said they would. If we dare to complain we are often met with derision and hostility and so, it becomes easier to pay up in silence than to make a fuss about what is rightfully ours. We are more laid back than most nationalities but this has as much to do with our reluctance to rock the boat as it does with our ability to go with the flow. I weighed up my options and decided that this wasn’t worth the indigestion.
The steak was delicious. We passed on dessert and asked for the bill. When it came, we were charged for a fillet steak. I looked at my husband and he looked back at me. I broke the silence. “This has to be sorted. I can do it or you can do it but I’m not leaving until somebody does it.” My husband sighed and asked to speak to the manageress. She came forthwith and listened intently while my husband explained the discrepancy in the bill and the non-appearance of my fillet. When he finished, the manageress switched her attention to me and in a challenging voice said, “But you ate it, didn’t you?” I was so surprised by the question that I laughed but I rallied quickly and said, “Yes, I did. But, I will not pay for what I did not have.” We locked eyes: it was a stand off. She blinked first and turning away from the table abruptly she marched off to correct the bill.
As we left, we bumped into my Aunt Eleanor who told me that she was ‘starving’ after a hard day’s shopping. I recommended the steak. If there was ever a woman who loved a battle it was Aunt Eleanor. We stepped out into the cold, rainy night but I mentally kicked my heels in the air: another blow struck for the Irish consumer.
I know that I am not the first to make this observation but the Irish take a lot of crap. We are met daily with sloppy service from surly assistants; charged higher prices than elsewhere in Europe for food and products that are not always of equally high standard and we get fobbed off with laughable excuses as to why things don’t work or someone hasn’t turned up when they said they would. If we dare to complain we are often met with derision and hostility and so, it becomes easier to pay up in silence than to make a fuss about what is rightfully ours. We are more laid back than most nationalities but this has as much to do with our reluctance to rock the boat as it does with our ability to go with the flow. I weighed up my options and decided that this wasn’t worth the indigestion.
The steak was delicious. We passed on dessert and asked for the bill. When it came, we were charged for a fillet steak. I looked at my husband and he looked back at me. I broke the silence. “This has to be sorted. I can do it or you can do it but I’m not leaving until somebody does it.” My husband sighed and asked to speak to the manageress. She came forthwith and listened intently while my husband explained the discrepancy in the bill and the non-appearance of my fillet. When he finished, the manageress switched her attention to me and in a challenging voice said, “But you ate it, didn’t you?” I was so surprised by the question that I laughed but I rallied quickly and said, “Yes, I did. But, I will not pay for what I did not have.” We locked eyes: it was a stand off. She blinked first and turning away from the table abruptly she marched off to correct the bill.
As we left, we bumped into my Aunt Eleanor who told me that she was ‘starving’ after a hard day’s shopping. I recommended the steak. If there was ever a woman who loved a battle it was Aunt Eleanor. We stepped out into the cold, rainy night but I mentally kicked my heels in the air: another blow struck for the Irish consumer.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Best Friends
I had a best friend called Ellen. She was my best friend from the age of five when we were in ‘Babies’ in primary school together right up until she got married and moved to Boston in 1988. We went to Eglantine school when the desks still had inkwells; you could lift up the tops and store your books inside and had benches that could sit two pupils. Our desk was up against the wall. Ellen sat on the inside next to the wall and when she got bored, she would raise her right leg and shove me onto the floor. She was half blind and I had a hearing aid; as a pair we functioned quite well. Our teacher often remarked, “The lord made ye but the devil matched ye.”
We were both manic readers. My library of Enid Blyton books was bigger than hers. It was so big that several weeks passed before I realised that Ellen was quietly stealing them from under my nose. One afternoon when we were in Ellen’s house, she proudly showed off her newly extended collection. Impressed, I took down a book and looked through it. My name on the inside cover had been clumsily scrubbed out. I looked at Ellen and said, “But these are my books!” Ellen panicked and snatching the book back said, “No, they’re mine now.” I had to fight her for them.
I lived very close to the school and walked home every day for my lunch. On the way, I passed Ballingcurrig Stores, outside of which were several bubble gum and gob stopper machines. I discovered one day, by accident, that one of the machines was faulty i.e. that you could turn the handle and still get a bubble gum without putting in the penny first. I couldn’t believe my luck. I cherished my secret stash and modestly rationed myself to two bubble gums a day. I let Ellen in on the secret. The day I told her, I went home for lunch as usual and passed the bubble gum machine. The glass bubble was half full. I nodded kindly at it and thought ‘See you on the way back, my friend.’ But when I returned the machine was empty. I assumed I had been rumbled and that the shop keeper had removed the loot. Back at school I sought out Ellen and told her that sadly our supply of bubble gums was no longer. She winked at me and cackled, “No I have them.” She told me that she had ran home at lunch time, got a large shopping bag and cleared the machine all in one go. I was stunned. “Give me some”, I said. “No, she replied, “They’re mine now.”
When we were both seventeen, we went up on the train to Dublin for a one day shopping extravaganza. We were like Ivana Trump and Paris Hilton on speed: we managed to get into every single shop on Grafton and O’Connell Street. We didn’t buy anything because we had almost no money but that didn’t slacken our fervour. Ellen warned me at the outset that we weren’t wasting any time stopping for lunch. However, around mid-afternoon; I crumbled and told her that I could not go on unless we ate something. Ellen rolled her eyes and consented to stop for five minutes. We went into a large fast food place on O’Connell Street which thank God no longer exists. We sat down at a table. My legs were killing me. I said, “OK, I’ll go up. What do you want?” Ellen pulling out a tin of tuna and a bread roll from her vast hand bag said, “A can opener.”
In our early twenties, we loved going to night clubs not for the men but to dance. We had no shame, the emptier the dance floor the better. Sometimes we wouldn’t be let in at the door. Ellen would assume her thickest country accent and whine, “But we’re all the way from Fermoy.” It worked every time.
I was chief bridesmaid at her wedding. Ellen’s mother said we were a disgrace in my blood red dress and Ellen, head to toe in dangling pearls and a plunging backless dress. Cork couldn’t contain Ellen: she was outrageous. I miss her.
We were both manic readers. My library of Enid Blyton books was bigger than hers. It was so big that several weeks passed before I realised that Ellen was quietly stealing them from under my nose. One afternoon when we were in Ellen’s house, she proudly showed off her newly extended collection. Impressed, I took down a book and looked through it. My name on the inside cover had been clumsily scrubbed out. I looked at Ellen and said, “But these are my books!” Ellen panicked and snatching the book back said, “No, they’re mine now.” I had to fight her for them.
I lived very close to the school and walked home every day for my lunch. On the way, I passed Ballingcurrig Stores, outside of which were several bubble gum and gob stopper machines. I discovered one day, by accident, that one of the machines was faulty i.e. that you could turn the handle and still get a bubble gum without putting in the penny first. I couldn’t believe my luck. I cherished my secret stash and modestly rationed myself to two bubble gums a day. I let Ellen in on the secret. The day I told her, I went home for lunch as usual and passed the bubble gum machine. The glass bubble was half full. I nodded kindly at it and thought ‘See you on the way back, my friend.’ But when I returned the machine was empty. I assumed I had been rumbled and that the shop keeper had removed the loot. Back at school I sought out Ellen and told her that sadly our supply of bubble gums was no longer. She winked at me and cackled, “No I have them.” She told me that she had ran home at lunch time, got a large shopping bag and cleared the machine all in one go. I was stunned. “Give me some”, I said. “No, she replied, “They’re mine now.”
When we were both seventeen, we went up on the train to Dublin for a one day shopping extravaganza. We were like Ivana Trump and Paris Hilton on speed: we managed to get into every single shop on Grafton and O’Connell Street. We didn’t buy anything because we had almost no money but that didn’t slacken our fervour. Ellen warned me at the outset that we weren’t wasting any time stopping for lunch. However, around mid-afternoon; I crumbled and told her that I could not go on unless we ate something. Ellen rolled her eyes and consented to stop for five minutes. We went into a large fast food place on O’Connell Street which thank God no longer exists. We sat down at a table. My legs were killing me. I said, “OK, I’ll go up. What do you want?” Ellen pulling out a tin of tuna and a bread roll from her vast hand bag said, “A can opener.”
In our early twenties, we loved going to night clubs not for the men but to dance. We had no shame, the emptier the dance floor the better. Sometimes we wouldn’t be let in at the door. Ellen would assume her thickest country accent and whine, “But we’re all the way from Fermoy.” It worked every time.
I was chief bridesmaid at her wedding. Ellen’s mother said we were a disgrace in my blood red dress and Ellen, head to toe in dangling pearls and a plunging backless dress. Cork couldn’t contain Ellen: she was outrageous. I miss her.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Oh, To be in Cork Now That Summer Is Here!
I was looking after my dad for the weekend as my mum went to London for my brother’s daughter’s communion and was prepared for a sedate two days. My father only watches RTE so I was obliged to watch the Late Late which I feel hasn’t been same since Gaybo retired. I thought David Kelly with his gentle humour and dapper dress at age 81 was a gold mine of stories to be followed by the most wanted man in Ireland, Tommy Bowe. Most sport personalities have no personality but his easy manner and ready smile made my heart melt.
My parents have a lovely garden which I was quite content to sit in but my son had a match in Cobh so we dragged ourselves along. We got lost several times and tempers were deteriorating rapidly as we got more hot and bothered trapped inside an airless car when suddenly we came across the pitch perched on a hillside overlooking the sea on a glorious Saturday morning.
Sunday was a magnificent day and my sister had a fit to go swimming. We had our lunch under the shade of a huge apple in the beer garden of The Anglers Rest and then leaving my dad with his Sunday papers went to find a place to swim. We crossed the road, cut through the car park and entered a field snowing with dandelion seeds. We followed a track through the high grass until we came to a gap in the hedge that opened onto a flat stretch of gravelly riverbank. There was already a large traveller family there with two horses and several dogs. My instinct was to run but my sister was completely unfazed. She flapped out her towel onto the stones and sat down. I sat with her and we watched the antics of Francie dragging his horse into the river ‘for a swim’, while his friends oblivious to the freezing water belly flopped into the river terrifying the fish. The dogs were no bigger than rats and seemed resigned to being picked up by tiny toddlers and flung into the water. There was a four day old foal that looked a dog with an oversized head. Everybody seemed to be called Francie; there was lots of good natured slagging and they didn’t seem to mind the audience. I could have sat there all day.
We then went to Fountainstown which was mobbed with half of Cork down there already. The tide was well in and everybody was forced to sit on the stones. Because of my freckly skin I fry in the sun and slathered sunblock in all my sensitive areas but forgot my right arm which was exposed to sun while driving. Today I have one pink arm which looks like an undercooked sausage but that’s an Irish summer for you – lobster skin: we rush out to greet the sun because we never know when it will be back again.
My parents have a lovely garden which I was quite content to sit in but my son had a match in Cobh so we dragged ourselves along. We got lost several times and tempers were deteriorating rapidly as we got more hot and bothered trapped inside an airless car when suddenly we came across the pitch perched on a hillside overlooking the sea on a glorious Saturday morning.
Sunday was a magnificent day and my sister had a fit to go swimming. We had our lunch under the shade of a huge apple in the beer garden of The Anglers Rest and then leaving my dad with his Sunday papers went to find a place to swim. We crossed the road, cut through the car park and entered a field snowing with dandelion seeds. We followed a track through the high grass until we came to a gap in the hedge that opened onto a flat stretch of gravelly riverbank. There was already a large traveller family there with two horses and several dogs. My instinct was to run but my sister was completely unfazed. She flapped out her towel onto the stones and sat down. I sat with her and we watched the antics of Francie dragging his horse into the river ‘for a swim’, while his friends oblivious to the freezing water belly flopped into the river terrifying the fish. The dogs were no bigger than rats and seemed resigned to being picked up by tiny toddlers and flung into the water. There was a four day old foal that looked a dog with an oversized head. Everybody seemed to be called Francie; there was lots of good natured slagging and they didn’t seem to mind the audience. I could have sat there all day.
We then went to Fountainstown which was mobbed with half of Cork down there already. The tide was well in and everybody was forced to sit on the stones. Because of my freckly skin I fry in the sun and slathered sunblock in all my sensitive areas but forgot my right arm which was exposed to sun while driving. Today I have one pink arm which looks like an undercooked sausage but that’s an Irish summer for you – lobster skin: we rush out to greet the sun because we never know when it will be back again.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
The Humble Geranium
You can’t beat a geranium for colour, pizzazz and downright cheerfulness. They are reliable, hardy and easy to grow. I met my first geranium in 1988 when I shared a flat with my brother in inner London. The flat was a complete dump but outside the window in the living room was a flower box with an almost dead geranium in it. It was one long, useless stalk but it was sitting in soil that had turned rock hard and with all the toxins of the city and obvious neglect, it did really well to keep going. I felt sorry for it, so I took to watering it everyday or when I remembered. Some months later, my efforts were rewarded when out of the end of the useless stalk, a tiny red bloom appeared. I was so proud of the little fella and felt gratified.
I have been a fan of the brave geranium ever since. My husband hates them; he says their pong aggravates his hay fever. Nevertheless, shortly after we moved into the marital home – a glorified shoe box – I trotted down to the garden centre at the first opportunity and bought three pots of flaming red geraniums. I put my new treasures on the window ledge in the bathroom where they could enjoy the most sun. Hubbie wasn’t happy but his grumblings went unheeded.
We were always getting locked out of our flat but luckily we lived on the ground floor and so we kept the tiny bathroom window slightly open at all times, confident that no passing burglar would attempt to climb through something so small. My husband, being a fair sized chunk of man, and me being a virtual dwarf, it was left up to me to do all the ‘breaking and entering.’ But that window was very small and there would be moments when I would get stuck and I’d panic thinking that I was going to plummet head first into the toilet bowl which was directly underneath. One particular day, Hubbie rings me at work to tell me that he was at home but was locked out and would I be leaving anytime soon. Out of pure meanness, I told him that I didn’t have a key either and that I was damned if I was going to climb through that bloody window yet again. When I got home, Hubbie had shed as many of his clothes as was decently possible and was hanging out the window with one leg in and one leg out. “Mind my geraniums,” I barked at him and with sweat pouring from his brow, he very patiently plucked up each geranium from inside the window and handed them out to me. “Come to momma,” I crooned at my babies, and after I set them down gently on the ground, I turned back to my husband and told him that I had the key after all. He cursed me and after a few minutes when he managed to extricate himself from the window, with all his limbs intact, I smiled brightly at him and said “Did you enjoy that?” He grinned back and said, “Not as much as this!” and then stooping down, he plucked up the three geraniums and flung them across the car park. I managed to rescue the plants and most of the soil – the pots were smashed to bits – and they continued to thrive back on the bathroom shelf, despite their mauling.
I have been a fan of the brave geranium ever since. My husband hates them; he says their pong aggravates his hay fever. Nevertheless, shortly after we moved into the marital home – a glorified shoe box – I trotted down to the garden centre at the first opportunity and bought three pots of flaming red geraniums. I put my new treasures on the window ledge in the bathroom where they could enjoy the most sun. Hubbie wasn’t happy but his grumblings went unheeded.
We were always getting locked out of our flat but luckily we lived on the ground floor and so we kept the tiny bathroom window slightly open at all times, confident that no passing burglar would attempt to climb through something so small. My husband, being a fair sized chunk of man, and me being a virtual dwarf, it was left up to me to do all the ‘breaking and entering.’ But that window was very small and there would be moments when I would get stuck and I’d panic thinking that I was going to plummet head first into the toilet bowl which was directly underneath. One particular day, Hubbie rings me at work to tell me that he was at home but was locked out and would I be leaving anytime soon. Out of pure meanness, I told him that I didn’t have a key either and that I was damned if I was going to climb through that bloody window yet again. When I got home, Hubbie had shed as many of his clothes as was decently possible and was hanging out the window with one leg in and one leg out. “Mind my geraniums,” I barked at him and with sweat pouring from his brow, he very patiently plucked up each geranium from inside the window and handed them out to me. “Come to momma,” I crooned at my babies, and after I set them down gently on the ground, I turned back to my husband and told him that I had the key after all. He cursed me and after a few minutes when he managed to extricate himself from the window, with all his limbs intact, I smiled brightly at him and said “Did you enjoy that?” He grinned back and said, “Not as much as this!” and then stooping down, he plucked up the three geraniums and flung them across the car park. I managed to rescue the plants and most of the soil – the pots were smashed to bits – and they continued to thrive back on the bathroom shelf, despite their mauling.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
This little green army in Japan World Cup 2002
In the summer of 2002, the Mighty Green Army headed East to Japan and Korea for the World Cup. My husband, our three sons, aged 8, 4 and 2, and I decided to join them. Hubbie planned it all, from the booking of the hotels, flights, trains, a visit to Disneyland and the cultural stuff like temples and gardens.
Japan is an amazing country but it is hideously expensive. As one guidebook put it, it is a place where you will feel truly impoverished.
Booking the hotels was surprisingly difficult. All the other bookings had gone smoothly enough but our attempts to reserve a hotel kept getting refused and so in the end, my husband had to ring Fusae, a Japanese friend to help us out. Fusae did the necessary and booked us the hotel in Niigatta without any problems.
However, when this little regiment rocked up to the hotel at 9pm, the night before the Cameroon game, we were met with blank looks and panic. Before we even stepped over the threshold, the manager immediately waved us away and said, “No Room.” We smiled, pressed on and reassured him that we had a booking. He shook his head vigourously and repeated “No Room” Standing before the reception desk, we could see the hotel log book open and our surname written there but he remained resolute. Hubbie got on the phone to Fusae. Fusae talked to the manager and it all ended well as a few minutes later, we were handed our room key and shown the lift. At all times, in keeping with the Asian tradition of ‘Face’, the negotiations were kept low key, polite and unheated.
Once inside the hotel room, the kids honed in on the TV. My eight year-old picked up an A4 sized laminated card lying next to the TV which listed all the channels. We were a bit taken aback when we saw the selection. Beside 17 of the channels listed, there was a photograph featuring buxom, doe-eyed, nymphs which, even with our non-existent grasp of the Japanese language, did not prevent us from understanding what was on offer. We managed to sidetrack the porno and settled down to watch Germany annihilate Saudi Arabia 8-0.
The World Cup match tickets were allocated so that only four could be purchased per booking. I had no ticket for the Cameroon game but we were able to purchase a fifth ticket from a man from Clonmel whose friend hadn’t shown up. Great! It meant, however, that my husband and the three boys were in the West Stand while I was in the East Stand on my own. I needn’t have worried. Before the game started, Angela, from Ballymun, sitting on my right introduced herself and so did the rest of the crowd around us. There was Kevin from Dublin, Michael and Kathleen from Meath, and others from all parts of Ireland. When I was obliged to return in kind and proffer my county, I got the immediate retort, “And do you have Roy Keane in your pocket?”
Our two year-old slept through most of the Cameroon game. He was rudely wakened when Matt Holland scored the equaliser and he got drowned in spilt beer. His angry protestations went unheard as the wave of euphoria swept through the stadium. The relief was palpable; Ireland might survive in the World Cup without Roy Keane after all.
The Japanese people have a reputation for being a polite but it was taken to new heights when on leaving the stadium, the stewards and other staff lined the exits and bowing to us with joined hands, said “Arigato, thank you for coming.” It was humbling to witness and it made me feel as if I had just attended a ballet recital rather than a potential hooligan fest.
The train to the Germany game was a slow, lumbering affair. Instead of the infamous high speed bullet train, we had to take the bog standard commuter train which stopped at every hamlet and mouse hole on the way. The train was packed with Irish fans, along with a flute, a couple of badhrains, a banjo and two Japanese businessmen. Despite being made to stand the whole way home, the businessmen were good humoured and seemed amused by the spectacle. Initially the mood was high but after an hour and a half of being squashed in a stuffy train, even the most exuberant fans became sombre. We had managed to get two seats to share between the five of us which we gave over to the children. Near to the end of the journey, our two-year old lost the plot completely and proceeded to have a meltdown. I tried all my usual methods to soothe him but when I could no longer contain his flailing limbs or shut him up; I eased him down to the floor where he lay on his back and continued to thrash out his frustrations. Apart from the racket he was making, there was now a depressed silence in the carriage. Then one of the businessmen nudged his friend and pointing to our, by now, hysterical son, said, “Roy Keane?”
The Irish would make a song out of anything. To the tune of Ooh Ah Paul McGrath, we sang Ooh Ah Konnichiawa, the Japanese word for 'Hello', as we swarmed out of the station towards Ibaraki Stadium to watch Ireland v Germany.
The Germany game started at 8pm and even though it was June, it was chilly. We came unprepared for this and when my four year started to moan about how ‘freezing’ he was, I let him snuggle under my shirt where he fell asleep for the duration of the game. When the irrepressible Robbie Keane scored the equaliser past the mighty Oliver Kahn, I was rooted to the spot like an enormous, green frog. Around us, thousands of Irish fans went berserk. The atmosphere was that of pure, indescribable joy as we were hugged and kissed each other and the lads in the row in front of us took our photo. The mood was still ecstatic leaving the stadium. A Dublin man in his fifties rushed up to my eldest son, fell to his knees before him and pleaded, “Do you realise that you witnessed an historic moment – Ireland scored a goal against Germany in the dying seconds of the World Cup!” I don’t think my son understood what the man said but he quickly nodded in agreement.
Back to the train station. Despite the hordes, the fans entered the station in an orderly fashion. We lined up dutifully at the painted lines on the platform and as each train filled up and pulled out, we shuttled forward and patiently awaited our turn. However, when our train pulled in, the driver overshot the platform which resulted in the doors missing their allocated spot by six inches. There was a mad scramble to get on the train. We clung tightly to the children and feared that we would be knocked over when suddenly a sharp Dublin accent rang out “Lads, there are children here!” Everybody froze in mid action, the crowd shuffled apart and we were ushered onto the train with murmurs of “There you go, Love."
Japan is an amazing country but it is hideously expensive. As one guidebook put it, it is a place where you will feel truly impoverished.
Booking the hotels was surprisingly difficult. All the other bookings had gone smoothly enough but our attempts to reserve a hotel kept getting refused and so in the end, my husband had to ring Fusae, a Japanese friend to help us out. Fusae did the necessary and booked us the hotel in Niigatta without any problems.
However, when this little regiment rocked up to the hotel at 9pm, the night before the Cameroon game, we were met with blank looks and panic. Before we even stepped over the threshold, the manager immediately waved us away and said, “No Room.” We smiled, pressed on and reassured him that we had a booking. He shook his head vigourously and repeated “No Room” Standing before the reception desk, we could see the hotel log book open and our surname written there but he remained resolute. Hubbie got on the phone to Fusae. Fusae talked to the manager and it all ended well as a few minutes later, we were handed our room key and shown the lift. At all times, in keeping with the Asian tradition of ‘Face’, the negotiations were kept low key, polite and unheated.
Once inside the hotel room, the kids honed in on the TV. My eight year-old picked up an A4 sized laminated card lying next to the TV which listed all the channels. We were a bit taken aback when we saw the selection. Beside 17 of the channels listed, there was a photograph featuring buxom, doe-eyed, nymphs which, even with our non-existent grasp of the Japanese language, did not prevent us from understanding what was on offer. We managed to sidetrack the porno and settled down to watch Germany annihilate Saudi Arabia 8-0.
The World Cup match tickets were allocated so that only four could be purchased per booking. I had no ticket for the Cameroon game but we were able to purchase a fifth ticket from a man from Clonmel whose friend hadn’t shown up. Great! It meant, however, that my husband and the three boys were in the West Stand while I was in the East Stand on my own. I needn’t have worried. Before the game started, Angela, from Ballymun, sitting on my right introduced herself and so did the rest of the crowd around us. There was Kevin from Dublin, Michael and Kathleen from Meath, and others from all parts of Ireland. When I was obliged to return in kind and proffer my county, I got the immediate retort, “And do you have Roy Keane in your pocket?”
Our two year-old slept through most of the Cameroon game. He was rudely wakened when Matt Holland scored the equaliser and he got drowned in spilt beer. His angry protestations went unheard as the wave of euphoria swept through the stadium. The relief was palpable; Ireland might survive in the World Cup without Roy Keane after all.
The Japanese people have a reputation for being a polite but it was taken to new heights when on leaving the stadium, the stewards and other staff lined the exits and bowing to us with joined hands, said “Arigato, thank you for coming.” It was humbling to witness and it made me feel as if I had just attended a ballet recital rather than a potential hooligan fest.
The train to the Germany game was a slow, lumbering affair. Instead of the infamous high speed bullet train, we had to take the bog standard commuter train which stopped at every hamlet and mouse hole on the way. The train was packed with Irish fans, along with a flute, a couple of badhrains, a banjo and two Japanese businessmen. Despite being made to stand the whole way home, the businessmen were good humoured and seemed amused by the spectacle. Initially the mood was high but after an hour and a half of being squashed in a stuffy train, even the most exuberant fans became sombre. We had managed to get two seats to share between the five of us which we gave over to the children. Near to the end of the journey, our two-year old lost the plot completely and proceeded to have a meltdown. I tried all my usual methods to soothe him but when I could no longer contain his flailing limbs or shut him up; I eased him down to the floor where he lay on his back and continued to thrash out his frustrations. Apart from the racket he was making, there was now a depressed silence in the carriage. Then one of the businessmen nudged his friend and pointing to our, by now, hysterical son, said, “Roy Keane?”
The Irish would make a song out of anything. To the tune of Ooh Ah Paul McGrath, we sang Ooh Ah Konnichiawa, the Japanese word for 'Hello', as we swarmed out of the station towards Ibaraki Stadium to watch Ireland v Germany.
The Germany game started at 8pm and even though it was June, it was chilly. We came unprepared for this and when my four year started to moan about how ‘freezing’ he was, I let him snuggle under my shirt where he fell asleep for the duration of the game. When the irrepressible Robbie Keane scored the equaliser past the mighty Oliver Kahn, I was rooted to the spot like an enormous, green frog. Around us, thousands of Irish fans went berserk. The atmosphere was that of pure, indescribable joy as we were hugged and kissed each other and the lads in the row in front of us took our photo. The mood was still ecstatic leaving the stadium. A Dublin man in his fifties rushed up to my eldest son, fell to his knees before him and pleaded, “Do you realise that you witnessed an historic moment – Ireland scored a goal against Germany in the dying seconds of the World Cup!” I don’t think my son understood what the man said but he quickly nodded in agreement.
Back to the train station. Despite the hordes, the fans entered the station in an orderly fashion. We lined up dutifully at the painted lines on the platform and as each train filled up and pulled out, we shuttled forward and patiently awaited our turn. However, when our train pulled in, the driver overshot the platform which resulted in the doors missing their allocated spot by six inches. There was a mad scramble to get on the train. We clung tightly to the children and feared that we would be knocked over when suddenly a sharp Dublin accent rang out “Lads, there are children here!” Everybody froze in mid action, the crowd shuffled apart and we were ushered onto the train with murmurs of “There you go, Love."
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Jelly Boy
Don’t you just love bank holiday Mondays? There was a time in my misguided youth when I hated them because everything shut down but now I have come to appreciate the opportunity to tune out and recharge the batteries.
I woke up about 9.30 am. My husband was still asleep. I could hear the boys being boys downstairs in the living room. I thought I would chance nipping into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and grabbing a flapjack, which I made last night and ducking back into bed without raising the attention of the boys: once they know you’re up, you’re up! I had just reached the bottom of the stairs when I was discovered. Two of them raced towards me and had a fight about who was going to hug me first. I peeled them off in exasperation and bolted for the kitchen. Middle son (8) asked for a flapjack. There were three left. I gave him one. Youngest son (6) then came in and claimed the second flapjack. I had my eye on the last one. Then Youngest asked me would I make the jelly. I told him that I had made the jelly last night and that it was in the fridge. He waved me away and starting to climb up on the kitchen counter saying, “There is a packet of jelly up here that you can make”. Again, I told him that it was in the fridge. But he was determined to find it, “No, no, it’s up here, I’ll show you.” Middle son joined in and said, “We know, we made it last night, it’s in the fridge” but he still wasn’t listening. He stood up on the counter. As I tell him the whereabouts of the jelly for the fourth time, he swung open the cupboard door and it bashed me on the head. I closed my eyes and turned away to deal with the pain but as I did I walked into another open cupboard door that dented me on the forehead. I yanked the Doubting Thomas from the counter and throwing open the fridge door said, “There’s your stupid jelly!” Highly indignant, he turned to me and protested, “You don’t have to shout!” At that point my husband wandered into the kitchen and said sleepily, “Is everything ok?” He reached for the last flapjack. I snatched it back out of his hand. Picking up my coffee, I stormed back to bed to recharge my batteries and start all over again
I woke up about 9.30 am. My husband was still asleep. I could hear the boys being boys downstairs in the living room. I thought I would chance nipping into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and grabbing a flapjack, which I made last night and ducking back into bed without raising the attention of the boys: once they know you’re up, you’re up! I had just reached the bottom of the stairs when I was discovered. Two of them raced towards me and had a fight about who was going to hug me first. I peeled them off in exasperation and bolted for the kitchen. Middle son (8) asked for a flapjack. There were three left. I gave him one. Youngest son (6) then came in and claimed the second flapjack. I had my eye on the last one. Then Youngest asked me would I make the jelly. I told him that I had made the jelly last night and that it was in the fridge. He waved me away and starting to climb up on the kitchen counter saying, “There is a packet of jelly up here that you can make”. Again, I told him that it was in the fridge. But he was determined to find it, “No, no, it’s up here, I’ll show you.” Middle son joined in and said, “We know, we made it last night, it’s in the fridge” but he still wasn’t listening. He stood up on the counter. As I tell him the whereabouts of the jelly for the fourth time, he swung open the cupboard door and it bashed me on the head. I closed my eyes and turned away to deal with the pain but as I did I walked into another open cupboard door that dented me on the forehead. I yanked the Doubting Thomas from the counter and throwing open the fridge door said, “There’s your stupid jelly!” Highly indignant, he turned to me and protested, “You don’t have to shout!” At that point my husband wandered into the kitchen and said sleepily, “Is everything ok?” He reached for the last flapjack. I snatched it back out of his hand. Picking up my coffee, I stormed back to bed to recharge my batteries and start all over again
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Freewheelin' in Donnybrook
My car broke down the other night. It was a typical hectic Monday evening for me; collect the youngest from GAA at 6pm, then head up to Donnybrook for the eldest who finishes soccer at 6.30 and the middle guy, same venue but he didn’t finish until 7.oopm. I brought along my Stephen King book and told them to run around and play until it was time to go. Thank God for long summer evenings.
At 7pm, the three boys climbed into the car sweaty, weary and starving for their dinner. I went to start the car. The battery was dead. I rang our insurance company which offered a break down service and help line which must be in Scotland judging by the accent. I told the girl that I didn’t know the name of the hill I was on but that I was in Donnybrook, Douglas. She said that a mechanic would be out in an hour. The boys started whining. I rang my mother and sacrificing Coronation Street; she was out like a bullet and whisked them away leaving me to my fate. I had my book and an unexpected quiet hour, I was content. An hour later, my mobile rang and a thick Dublin accent said, “How’re ya?” My heart sank. I said, “You’re in Dublin, aren’t you?” He said, “Yeah, I’m in Donnybrook, where are you?” Wrong Donnybrook. I told him that I was in Cork to which he replied, “Well I’m no good to you so, am I?!” and hung up.
I rang the insurance company again. I was told that I was now ‘Priority’ but that nobody could get to me before 10pm. I explained to the girl that I was in a football ground which was due to be locked up in the next half an hour. Miss Helpful suggested that I find a man to wheel the car out onto the road and to wait there. I went looking for manly assistance. I approached my son’s coach and he and two others readily agreed to push me out the gate. It was comical driving steadily backwards across a field with three men on my bonnet. Once on the road, the coach suggested that since I was near the top of the hill, I should freewheel down and try jump start the car myself by pumping the clutch. I had seen my father do it countless times as a child in our knackered car; the 12 year old thrill seeker inside of me was tempted to take on the challenge of careering through a residential area in an out-of-control car. The three of them were about to launch me when the rescue man suddenly appeared. Mass murder averted. The rescue guy said the break down service were hopeless and suggested that I take up membership with the AA right after I buy a new battery. I’ve actually been very lucky with my breakdowns, they always happen within walking distance of home and on summer evenings when I’m not rushing anywhere. My guardian angel is definitely paying attention!
At 7pm, the three boys climbed into the car sweaty, weary and starving for their dinner. I went to start the car. The battery was dead. I rang our insurance company which offered a break down service and help line which must be in Scotland judging by the accent. I told the girl that I didn’t know the name of the hill I was on but that I was in Donnybrook, Douglas. She said that a mechanic would be out in an hour. The boys started whining. I rang my mother and sacrificing Coronation Street; she was out like a bullet and whisked them away leaving me to my fate. I had my book and an unexpected quiet hour, I was content. An hour later, my mobile rang and a thick Dublin accent said, “How’re ya?” My heart sank. I said, “You’re in Dublin, aren’t you?” He said, “Yeah, I’m in Donnybrook, where are you?” Wrong Donnybrook. I told him that I was in Cork to which he replied, “Well I’m no good to you so, am I?!” and hung up.
I rang the insurance company again. I was told that I was now ‘Priority’ but that nobody could get to me before 10pm. I explained to the girl that I was in a football ground which was due to be locked up in the next half an hour. Miss Helpful suggested that I find a man to wheel the car out onto the road and to wait there. I went looking for manly assistance. I approached my son’s coach and he and two others readily agreed to push me out the gate. It was comical driving steadily backwards across a field with three men on my bonnet. Once on the road, the coach suggested that since I was near the top of the hill, I should freewheel down and try jump start the car myself by pumping the clutch. I had seen my father do it countless times as a child in our knackered car; the 12 year old thrill seeker inside of me was tempted to take on the challenge of careering through a residential area in an out-of-control car. The three of them were about to launch me when the rescue man suddenly appeared. Mass murder averted. The rescue guy said the break down service were hopeless and suggested that I take up membership with the AA right after I buy a new battery. I’ve actually been very lucky with my breakdowns, they always happen within walking distance of home and on summer evenings when I’m not rushing anywhere. My guardian angel is definitely paying attention!
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
The Visit - Tanzania
The family are visiting Uncle Fred who works for Concern in Tanzania. After three flights over two days, we arrived in Dar Es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania. I am not a great traveller. I regard airports as the armpit of the world: too warm, uncomfortable and nothing decent to eat.
We arrive in good spirits and the next day we set off on a day and half drive to Ruaha Safari park in central Tanzania. Driving through the bush, the roads are so battered it is like travelling on corrugated iron. The kids, all five of them, are thrown around the back of the jeep and love it.
Several hours into the journey, my husband asks the driver, Rogerino for a pit stop. Rogerino, named by the Italian nuns who raised him, weighs up the best place to stop. He pulls across the empty road and back over again until he is satisfied he has found the best spot with maximum shade. Men and boys are lucky: they can go anywhere. I would have to walk a mile before I had decent cover and then you wouldn’t know what or who you might meet: this being Masai tribe and lion territory.
Two hours later, we arrive at the safari park gates. Up ahead, on a hill I see a single hut marked ‘Ladies’. While Rogerino plays Eenie, Meenie Minie Mo with his parking options, I open the door while the car is still moving and hit the ground running to that gleaming hut on the hill.
Sanity restored, I stroll back down to find the children standing on a bridge gawping at several crocodiles and hippos in the river. We were to see lots of animals over the next three days but my favourite is the hippo. It is hard not to attribute human characteristics to animals; if it is fat then you assume that it must be cuddly however, Fred told us they actually kill more people than crocodiles. Hippos are defensive, cranky and paranoid. They are herbivores but if the mood takes them, they'll overturn a boat, take a chomp out of you and then the crocodiles move in. That's why they hang out together.
A house on stilts overlooking the river was to be our home for the next three nights. As we sat out on the veranda, we could see two hippos partly submerged in the water with only their nostrils and enormous rumps showing. Hippos act like badly behaved old ladies who have had too much to drink. Every now then they emit loud honking noises and burps and occasionally they come to the riverbank to bask in the sun like great big brown slugs. The boys renamed them Hippo-butt-am-I.
The safari dining room is in a separate building about 500 yards from the houses. After dark, it is not advised to walk outside alone and so every night after dinner, a Masai warrior escorted us home. The warrior was real: his spear was sharper than a Gillette blade. The first night, my six year old son and I were walking to our house when the warrior spotted a fully grown hippo under the stilts. It has been known for hippos to head butt the stilts and send the whole house crashing into the river. Thanks to the warrior, we made it inside the house safely. My son was afraid that the hippo might come into the house during the night.
I reassured him, “He’s so fat he won’t be able to get up the stairs and even if he did, the stairs would collapse under his weight.”
My son agreed, “And anyway, he doesn’t know the code.”
We arrive in good spirits and the next day we set off on a day and half drive to Ruaha Safari park in central Tanzania. Driving through the bush, the roads are so battered it is like travelling on corrugated iron. The kids, all five of them, are thrown around the back of the jeep and love it.
Several hours into the journey, my husband asks the driver, Rogerino for a pit stop. Rogerino, named by the Italian nuns who raised him, weighs up the best place to stop. He pulls across the empty road and back over again until he is satisfied he has found the best spot with maximum shade. Men and boys are lucky: they can go anywhere. I would have to walk a mile before I had decent cover and then you wouldn’t know what or who you might meet: this being Masai tribe and lion territory.
Two hours later, we arrive at the safari park gates. Up ahead, on a hill I see a single hut marked ‘Ladies’. While Rogerino plays Eenie, Meenie Minie Mo with his parking options, I open the door while the car is still moving and hit the ground running to that gleaming hut on the hill.
Sanity restored, I stroll back down to find the children standing on a bridge gawping at several crocodiles and hippos in the river. We were to see lots of animals over the next three days but my favourite is the hippo. It is hard not to attribute human characteristics to animals; if it is fat then you assume that it must be cuddly however, Fred told us they actually kill more people than crocodiles. Hippos are defensive, cranky and paranoid. They are herbivores but if the mood takes them, they'll overturn a boat, take a chomp out of you and then the crocodiles move in. That's why they hang out together.
A house on stilts overlooking the river was to be our home for the next three nights. As we sat out on the veranda, we could see two hippos partly submerged in the water with only their nostrils and enormous rumps showing. Hippos act like badly behaved old ladies who have had too much to drink. Every now then they emit loud honking noises and burps and occasionally they come to the riverbank to bask in the sun like great big brown slugs. The boys renamed them Hippo-butt-am-I.
The safari dining room is in a separate building about 500 yards from the houses. After dark, it is not advised to walk outside alone and so every night after dinner, a Masai warrior escorted us home. The warrior was real: his spear was sharper than a Gillette blade. The first night, my six year old son and I were walking to our house when the warrior spotted a fully grown hippo under the stilts. It has been known for hippos to head butt the stilts and send the whole house crashing into the river. Thanks to the warrior, we made it inside the house safely. My son was afraid that the hippo might come into the house during the night.
I reassured him, “He’s so fat he won’t be able to get up the stairs and even if he did, the stairs would collapse under his weight.”
My son agreed, “And anyway, he doesn’t know the code.”
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
The Kindness of Strangers
Seven years ago my father had a stroke. It has been a huge adjustment for him as he had to give up his beloved tennis, golf and driving. Driving was the biggest loss as it meant giving up his independence. However, the day was saved when my mother found a 'Shop Planner’ through the Echo. It’s a kind of a motorised scooter that goes as fast as a brisk walk or you can speed it up to a gentle jog if you are in a particular hurry. Dad uses it every morning to go to Douglas Court and back for his coffee and paper.
After a recent short spell in hospital, we weren't sure if he could manage the journey by himself so on his first Saturday home, I went with him. We set off fine. When your mobility is restricted you notice the little things like steps and whether the pavement is modified in the right places. They were but it was alarming to realise that the footpath on that stretch of the Douglas Road between AIB and the beginning of the Well Road is sloped. As he ploughed relentlessly towards Douglas, the scooter listed heavily towards the road. I panicked. I stayed on his outside forcing him to move into the inside. He scraped the wall a few times but, better a scratched bumper than calling an ambulance.
Crossing the roundabout outside Douglas Court is like entering No Man’s Land: there is danger from all sides. My Dad, like most people his age, assumes he has right of way. He ploughed across the road and before I had a chance to scream, the oncoming car stopped. For two seconds, everything came to a screeching halt. I hurried after him and the swirling chaos of traffic resumed.
The Farmers Market was being set up in the car park. Dad glided between the crates of plants waiting to be unloaded, skirted around flimsy tent poles and managed to avoid trailing ropes. However, when he turned his head to admire a stand of cupcakes he kept his thumb on the throttle. Two men standing in his flight path had to jump out of his way. They apologised. I apologised and, my Dad……was gone. Inside Douglas Court, I told him that I would get his paper and that I would meet him in O’Brien’s with the instruction that he was not to get out his scooter until I got there. At Porters, I queued behind a man buying €40 worth of Lotto tickets. By the time I got to Dad, he was being helped out of his scooter by two women and telling them where he wanted to go. I shot up to them. One of the women said, “The man who was on your father’s table has moved.” After some shifting of furniture, the waitress brought over his coffee, he settled down with his paper and all was well. I thanked the two women again. The second lady whispered, “Don't worry; my father had a stroke too. Their independence is very important to them.”
Heading home again, I suggested we stop at the garage to pump up the back tyres. Dad said, "Not today." As we drew level with the Esso garage on the Douglas Road, he said, “We'll cross here.” I pressed the traffic light but he had already swung the scooter around and was halfway off the pavement. A Fiesta stopped even though the light was green for her. We crossed quickly. I waved my thanks to the driver. Pumping the tyres only took seconds. Dad said he could feel the difference: he was two inches higher and seemed to sag a little less on the slopes.
After a recent short spell in hospital, we weren't sure if he could manage the journey by himself so on his first Saturday home, I went with him. We set off fine. When your mobility is restricted you notice the little things like steps and whether the pavement is modified in the right places. They were but it was alarming to realise that the footpath on that stretch of the Douglas Road between AIB and the beginning of the Well Road is sloped. As he ploughed relentlessly towards Douglas, the scooter listed heavily towards the road. I panicked. I stayed on his outside forcing him to move into the inside. He scraped the wall a few times but, better a scratched bumper than calling an ambulance.
Crossing the roundabout outside Douglas Court is like entering No Man’s Land: there is danger from all sides. My Dad, like most people his age, assumes he has right of way. He ploughed across the road and before I had a chance to scream, the oncoming car stopped. For two seconds, everything came to a screeching halt. I hurried after him and the swirling chaos of traffic resumed.
The Farmers Market was being set up in the car park. Dad glided between the crates of plants waiting to be unloaded, skirted around flimsy tent poles and managed to avoid trailing ropes. However, when he turned his head to admire a stand of cupcakes he kept his thumb on the throttle. Two men standing in his flight path had to jump out of his way. They apologised. I apologised and, my Dad……was gone. Inside Douglas Court, I told him that I would get his paper and that I would meet him in O’Brien’s with the instruction that he was not to get out his scooter until I got there. At Porters, I queued behind a man buying €40 worth of Lotto tickets. By the time I got to Dad, he was being helped out of his scooter by two women and telling them where he wanted to go. I shot up to them. One of the women said, “The man who was on your father’s table has moved.” After some shifting of furniture, the waitress brought over his coffee, he settled down with his paper and all was well. I thanked the two women again. The second lady whispered, “Don't worry; my father had a stroke too. Their independence is very important to them.”
Heading home again, I suggested we stop at the garage to pump up the back tyres. Dad said, "Not today." As we drew level with the Esso garage on the Douglas Road, he said, “We'll cross here.” I pressed the traffic light but he had already swung the scooter around and was halfway off the pavement. A Fiesta stopped even though the light was green for her. We crossed quickly. I waved my thanks to the driver. Pumping the tyres only took seconds. Dad said he could feel the difference: he was two inches higher and seemed to sag a little less on the slopes.
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
For the last ten days, my two older sons have been away from home. The Eldest travelled with his school on a rugby tour and Middle son went to Irish College in Waterford. Youngest son stayed at home. He had mixed feelings about being the sole object of my attention: he loved the empty house but when I suggested we could go on little adventures together and stop in O’Brien’s for a treat, he shook his head and said, “No way!” I left him off.
My sons' temporary absence gave me a foretaste of the Empty Nest Syndrome. At first I didn’t like the quiet house and almost felt lonely. You know those people who live near Heathrow and then can’t sleep without the noise of jumbo jets rattling their house, I found the peace unsettling. However, after a day or so I got used to the quiet and then found unexpected pleasures: I didn’t have to crank out a dinner every night nor make four sets of lunches every morning; the pile in the laundry basket didn’t grow any bigger – Youngest Son takes recycling personally - food lasted longer, the house remained in the same state as the day before, no dumped bags in the hall, no trails of muck, rain and grass through the kitchen. The house became Zen-like in its simplicity and reading more attractive as I was not required to drive someone somewhere NOW.
Youngest son slept in a different bed every night because he could. He had complete monopoly of the TV but was generous with it. He recommended Come Dine With Me saying, "You wouldn’t believe how mean these women are to each other!” We watched the final of the Cork edition together. I didn’t know the history of the five contestants: three women and two men. One man was a doormat – there’s always one in every group, the second man was larger than life in every way; big rings, large head and a booming voice. He seemed like a good laugh and would have dominated the conversation only for the women verbally tearing lumps out of each other. I can’t remember their names but I will call the 52 year old brunette, Karen, the 25 year old brunette, Anne and young blonde, Simone. It was Simone’s turn to cook. In her kitchen she was marinating lamb chops. While kneading the chops into a tepee shape she said, “I know Karen has a thing about lamb ever since her pet lamb was slaughtered when she was a child but that’s what’s cooking….” and broke off laughing in hysterics. For Anne the vegetarian, Simone was cooking a massive vegetable casserole that would have fed Croke Park on All Ireland Final day. It had twenty different kinds of vegetables, ready-chopped. She seemed lost as to what to do with them. First she sautéed them, then she mushed them, and then added more to it. Eventually she had no dish big enough to contain it. It was like the Magic Porridge Pot: it kept growing and growing.
At the dinner table Karen sniffed the lamb with suspicion and shook her head in disbelief. Anne was not impressed with her main course even though Simone went to the trouble of serving it in a pretty, heart-shaped bowl. She gingerly prodded the mess with her fork and after putting it to her mouth said, ‘It’s disgusting’. They got past their prejudices and mid dinner, Karen said to Anne, ‘Isn’t it hypocritical of you being a vegetarian?’ Anne looked surprised and clearing her throat said, ‘Do you even know what hypocritical means?’ I thought that was a fair question. ‘Are you calling me thick?’ said Karen. Loud man begged the two of them to calm down. Doormat said his appetite was ruined. To the camera after dinner, Karen, shaking with rage said, "For a 25 year old to talk to a 52 year like that is disgraceful. She doesn’t know her place." Who talks like that anymore? I didn’t know foodies were such divas. I was flabbergasted by their rudeness. After all, Ireland is a small place, Cork is even smaller, and on TV too.
Middle son has just sent me a text saying ‘Will u be coming this weekend or something’. He must have run out of money. It reminds me of the story my dad used to tell us whenever we asked for our pocket-money. A boy sent his father telegram that read - No Mon, No Fun, Your Son. His father replied – Too Bad, So Sad, Your Dad. Absence from home makes little boys broke!
My sons' temporary absence gave me a foretaste of the Empty Nest Syndrome. At first I didn’t like the quiet house and almost felt lonely. You know those people who live near Heathrow and then can’t sleep without the noise of jumbo jets rattling their house, I found the peace unsettling. However, after a day or so I got used to the quiet and then found unexpected pleasures: I didn’t have to crank out a dinner every night nor make four sets of lunches every morning; the pile in the laundry basket didn’t grow any bigger – Youngest Son takes recycling personally - food lasted longer, the house remained in the same state as the day before, no dumped bags in the hall, no trails of muck, rain and grass through the kitchen. The house became Zen-like in its simplicity and reading more attractive as I was not required to drive someone somewhere NOW.
Youngest son slept in a different bed every night because he could. He had complete monopoly of the TV but was generous with it. He recommended Come Dine With Me saying, "You wouldn’t believe how mean these women are to each other!” We watched the final of the Cork edition together. I didn’t know the history of the five contestants: three women and two men. One man was a doormat – there’s always one in every group, the second man was larger than life in every way; big rings, large head and a booming voice. He seemed like a good laugh and would have dominated the conversation only for the women verbally tearing lumps out of each other. I can’t remember their names but I will call the 52 year old brunette, Karen, the 25 year old brunette, Anne and young blonde, Simone. It was Simone’s turn to cook. In her kitchen she was marinating lamb chops. While kneading the chops into a tepee shape she said, “I know Karen has a thing about lamb ever since her pet lamb was slaughtered when she was a child but that’s what’s cooking….” and broke off laughing in hysterics. For Anne the vegetarian, Simone was cooking a massive vegetable casserole that would have fed Croke Park on All Ireland Final day. It had twenty different kinds of vegetables, ready-chopped. She seemed lost as to what to do with them. First she sautéed them, then she mushed them, and then added more to it. Eventually she had no dish big enough to contain it. It was like the Magic Porridge Pot: it kept growing and growing.
At the dinner table Karen sniffed the lamb with suspicion and shook her head in disbelief. Anne was not impressed with her main course even though Simone went to the trouble of serving it in a pretty, heart-shaped bowl. She gingerly prodded the mess with her fork and after putting it to her mouth said, ‘It’s disgusting’. They got past their prejudices and mid dinner, Karen said to Anne, ‘Isn’t it hypocritical of you being a vegetarian?’ Anne looked surprised and clearing her throat said, ‘Do you even know what hypocritical means?’ I thought that was a fair question. ‘Are you calling me thick?’ said Karen. Loud man begged the two of them to calm down. Doormat said his appetite was ruined. To the camera after dinner, Karen, shaking with rage said, "For a 25 year old to talk to a 52 year like that is disgraceful. She doesn’t know her place." Who talks like that anymore? I didn’t know foodies were such divas. I was flabbergasted by their rudeness. After all, Ireland is a small place, Cork is even smaller, and on TV too.
Middle son has just sent me a text saying ‘Will u be coming this weekend or something’. He must have run out of money. It reminds me of the story my dad used to tell us whenever we asked for our pocket-money. A boy sent his father telegram that read - No Mon, No Fun, Your Son. His father replied – Too Bad, So Sad, Your Dad. Absence from home makes little boys broke!
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Wit and Wisdom in the Kingdom - Listowel Writers Week 2011
I attended the Listowel Writers Week over the June weekend with my friend Donna. I signed up for the Writing Funny workshop while Donna did Modern Fiction. The workshops took place from Thursday to Saturday, 9am to 1pm leaving the afternoon free for the aspiring writer to mull over the morning’s learning and to draw inspiration from the wide selection of talks that took place throughout the day and evening.
Unfortunately, we left the booking of accommodation until too late and as a result we stayed in the Listowel Arms ‘sister hotel’ in Ballybunion. We had intended to arrive early the first morning to register but we didn’t factor in the nine mile drive from Ballybunion nor the fact that we can’t read maps. I was the last to arrive in my class. I met a woman wearing an emerald green dress and mint green shoes. I said, “Do you like green?” She replied, “I like colour” and hurried away. The class had started. I hurried into the last available seat.
By way of introduction, we were all asked to identity our idea of funny and to tell a joke or a funny thing that happened to them. Joanne, a teacher from Derry told how she was asked to take part in the re-enactment of the Siege of the Derry.“We couldn’t find 300 Protestants, so we made do with 300 Catholics pretending to be Protestants. We practised for months.”
We were then told how the most basic comedy arises when a rule bound, inflexible person deals with life. They are either the butt of other people’s jokes or as they collide with life, things go wrong for them. Think Basil Fawlty. We were then asked to describe an inflexible person we knew. Listening to my classmates’ descriptions, I was struck by how unhappy these people must be when Carmel from Kildare spoke up. “What you are all describing is OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and I live with four of these people in my home and believe me it is not funny at all. It’s very stressful.”
Moving swiftly on we discussed how one person’s pain can make others laugh. Several years ago, I lived in Singapore and I hated the place. I was constantly clashing with the natives and was desperately miserable. One afternoon, I was hit on the head by an exit barrier. It was an accident but I blamed the security guards. I fired off a seven page typed letter to my mother. I poured out my rage; all the inconveniences I had to put up with, the injustices of my life and generally how I hated everybody. I felt better for getting it all down in paper. I then faxed the letter home. Ten minutes later a single page came crawling through the fax machine. It was from my brother and on it he had drawn a picture of Mount Krakatau exploding. Underneath my sister had written, “Thank God, you are 10,000 miles away venting your temper on someone else.” I was confused. I rang home. I could hear scuffling as the phone was picked up. There seemed to be chaos. I thought I heard my brother laughing. My mother very carefully said, “Yes?” I said, “Mum, what’s going on?” My mother couldn’t seem to speak. Was she crying? Then it dawned on me that they were laughing. I shouted down the phone at them, “I’m in pain here, I’m really suffering!” My mother whimpered, “I’m sorry but….!” I hung up.
By the time we broke for coffee, I realised you can’t teach people to be funny. You are either funny or you are not; it’s like teaching Hitler to be spontaneous. Over coffee I talked to a lady who had red hair, yellow glasses, amber earrings and necklace and was dressed in an orange top and skirt, black tights and bright orange Crocs. I said, “Do you like orange?” She sighed and said, “I like colour.” She drove an acid yellow Fiat car which had a sticker on the back Dip in Nip 2004. She explained that it was a charity for breast cancer and they had raised €56,000. I was impressed and said, “Do they pay to watch you?” “Not at all, she said, it’s completely private!”
Later that afternoon, as I waited for Donna in the lobby of the Listowel Arms Hotel, I was struck by the fabulous clothes worn by the women of all ages and sizes. It wasn’t quite wedding standard but every shimmering fabric was represented, no colour was too bright, no heel too high, and every neck and ear boasted big, bold jewellery. I noted the older the woman, the more flamboyant the outfit. In my grey sweatshirt and denim jeans I felt like a pigeon among the peacocks.
Listowel is full on. Every minute is filled with literary jewels from readings to recitals, book signings and interviews with famous authors. On the Thursday evening, I went to see Richard Dawkins in conversation with Kevin Myers the Fosset’s Circus tent. On Friday I spent the day on the beach in Ballybunion in the glorious sunshine and had an early night suffering from vertigo. My favourite author was David Sedaris. He was exceptionally funny in an understated, Woody Allen kind of way. I bought one of his books on the spot and have bought two more since. That’s the trouble with those kinds of weekends: they renew your love of books, fill you with optimism and inspire you to pick up your pen…..
Unfortunately, we left the booking of accommodation until too late and as a result we stayed in the Listowel Arms ‘sister hotel’ in Ballybunion. We had intended to arrive early the first morning to register but we didn’t factor in the nine mile drive from Ballybunion nor the fact that we can’t read maps. I was the last to arrive in my class. I met a woman wearing an emerald green dress and mint green shoes. I said, “Do you like green?” She replied, “I like colour” and hurried away. The class had started. I hurried into the last available seat.
By way of introduction, we were all asked to identity our idea of funny and to tell a joke or a funny thing that happened to them. Joanne, a teacher from Derry told how she was asked to take part in the re-enactment of the Siege of the Derry.“We couldn’t find 300 Protestants, so we made do with 300 Catholics pretending to be Protestants. We practised for months.”
We were then told how the most basic comedy arises when a rule bound, inflexible person deals with life. They are either the butt of other people’s jokes or as they collide with life, things go wrong for them. Think Basil Fawlty. We were then asked to describe an inflexible person we knew. Listening to my classmates’ descriptions, I was struck by how unhappy these people must be when Carmel from Kildare spoke up. “What you are all describing is OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and I live with four of these people in my home and believe me it is not funny at all. It’s very stressful.”
Moving swiftly on we discussed how one person’s pain can make others laugh. Several years ago, I lived in Singapore and I hated the place. I was constantly clashing with the natives and was desperately miserable. One afternoon, I was hit on the head by an exit barrier. It was an accident but I blamed the security guards. I fired off a seven page typed letter to my mother. I poured out my rage; all the inconveniences I had to put up with, the injustices of my life and generally how I hated everybody. I felt better for getting it all down in paper. I then faxed the letter home. Ten minutes later a single page came crawling through the fax machine. It was from my brother and on it he had drawn a picture of Mount Krakatau exploding. Underneath my sister had written, “Thank God, you are 10,000 miles away venting your temper on someone else.” I was confused. I rang home. I could hear scuffling as the phone was picked up. There seemed to be chaos. I thought I heard my brother laughing. My mother very carefully said, “Yes?” I said, “Mum, what’s going on?” My mother couldn’t seem to speak. Was she crying? Then it dawned on me that they were laughing. I shouted down the phone at them, “I’m in pain here, I’m really suffering!” My mother whimpered, “I’m sorry but….!” I hung up.
By the time we broke for coffee, I realised you can’t teach people to be funny. You are either funny or you are not; it’s like teaching Hitler to be spontaneous. Over coffee I talked to a lady who had red hair, yellow glasses, amber earrings and necklace and was dressed in an orange top and skirt, black tights and bright orange Crocs. I said, “Do you like orange?” She sighed and said, “I like colour.” She drove an acid yellow Fiat car which had a sticker on the back Dip in Nip 2004. She explained that it was a charity for breast cancer and they had raised €56,000. I was impressed and said, “Do they pay to watch you?” “Not at all, she said, it’s completely private!”
Later that afternoon, as I waited for Donna in the lobby of the Listowel Arms Hotel, I was struck by the fabulous clothes worn by the women of all ages and sizes. It wasn’t quite wedding standard but every shimmering fabric was represented, no colour was too bright, no heel too high, and every neck and ear boasted big, bold jewellery. I noted the older the woman, the more flamboyant the outfit. In my grey sweatshirt and denim jeans I felt like a pigeon among the peacocks.
Listowel is full on. Every minute is filled with literary jewels from readings to recitals, book signings and interviews with famous authors. On the Thursday evening, I went to see Richard Dawkins in conversation with Kevin Myers the Fosset’s Circus tent. On Friday I spent the day on the beach in Ballybunion in the glorious sunshine and had an early night suffering from vertigo. My favourite author was David Sedaris. He was exceptionally funny in an understated, Woody Allen kind of way. I bought one of his books on the spot and have bought two more since. That’s the trouble with those kinds of weekends: they renew your love of books, fill you with optimism and inspire you to pick up your pen…..
My name is Geraldine. I live in Cork, Ireland. I have three teenage sons, one husband and a small garden.
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